“In order to become fully human, man had to pull himself out of the slime. And all this is the result. As the Takers see it, the gods gave man the same choice they gave Achilles: a brief life of glory or a long, uneventful life in obscurity. And the Takers chose a brief life of glory.” “Yes, that’s certainly how it’s understood. People just shrug

We’ve killed off our direct competitors and our competitors once removed. Now we can kill off our competitors twice removed—the plants that compete with the grasses for space and sunlight.” “That’s right. Then there will be more plants for your game and more game for you.” “Funny….This is considered almost holy work by farmers and ranchers. Kill

“ ‘Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population.’ Peter Farb said it in Humankind.”

“You’re captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.”

“Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe.

We were never meant to be the only players on this stage. Apparently the gods intend this planet to be a garden filled with creatures that are self-aware and intelligent.”

diversity is exactly what’s under attack here. Every day dozens of species disappear as a direct result of the way the Takers compete outside the law.” “Now that you know there’s a law involved, does it make a difference in the way you view what’s going on?” “Yes. I no longer think of what we’re doing as a blunder. We’re not destroying the world

“You know how to split atoms, how to send explorers to the moon, how to splice genes, but you don’t know how people ought to live.”

Man was born to turn the world into a paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidity, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness.”