Nothing is absolute, with the debatable exceptions of this statement and death. John Ralston Saul More Quotes by John Ralston Saul More Quotes From John Ralston Saul Myrmecophaga jubata: The anteater. The existence of this predator demonstrates that thinking 71 percent of the time, as ants do, won't prevent you from being eaten. Thinking less than that, as humans do, will almost guarantee it. John Ralston Saul predatorguaranteesthinking In all earlier civilizations, it should be remembered, commerce was treated as a narrow activity and by no means the senior sector in society. John Ralston Saul seniorcivilizationmean In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers. John Ralston Saul creativityideasinteresting Love: A term which has no meaning if defined. John Ralston Saul definedtermifs In the European tradition, rivers are seen as divisions between peoples. But in the Aboriginal tradition, rivers are seen as the glue, the highway, the linkage between people, not the separation. And that's the history of Canada: our rivers and lakes were our highways. John Ralston Saul canadatraditionhistorypeople The merger mania which goes on and on and on is the sign of the disappearance of competition. As we deregulate, the mergers increase, which means there's less and less competition. At the national level, at the regional level, but also at the international level. John Ralston Saul mergersignlevelcompetition People are always saying it's the end of the Gutenberg era. More to the point, it's a return to an oral era. The Gutenberg galaxy was about the written word. At its best, the digital era is part of the rediscovery of the oral. At its worst, it's a Kafkaesque victory of the bureaucratic over the imagination. John Ralston Saul bestvictoryimaginationpeople How can we possibly say the root of the Canadian approach to citizenship and immigration comes from Europe or the United States? I mean, we just don't do the same things. What I've said, very simply, is that unlike other colonies, for the first 250 years approximately, indigenous people were either the dominant force or an equal force. John Ralston Saul saycitizenshipimmigrationpeople Some people don't like the 'comeback' because that suggests they went somewhere, which they didn't. That isn't what I mean. In my mind, people were doing well, and then they went right down, and they made a comeback. It's not that they went anywhere. It's that their fortunes went way down, and then they came back. John Ralston Saul comebackmindpeopleway People who believe in freedom of expression have spent several centuries fighting against censorship, in whatever form. We have to be certain the 'Net' doesn't become the site for technological book burning. John Ralston Saul freedombelievebookpeople Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring value. John Ralston Saul valuemoneyrealagreement You can always tell you're in deep trouble when people start thinking money's real. John Ralston Saul youmoneypeoplethinking In the Arctic, the Inuit are saying water and land are the same; they're an unbroken unity. In the winter, you travel on the ice because it's the linkage and the easiest way, and in the summer, you move around on the water. John Ralston Saul youwinterwatertravel The 19th-century pure capitalist model of society was a pyramid, concentrations of enormous wealth in a small group at the top, a not very big middle-class in the middle, and an enormous percentage of the population in the bottom part of the pyramid. John Ralston Saul smallgroupwealthsociety The fighting back by indigenous people started in 1900: OK, they've cornered us. Our population is almost gone; they've defeated us. From there, the modern Indian rights movement started, and it was a very hard fight, with a lot of stuff going against them. John Ralston Saul fightbackfightingpeople In my mind, there's not a great difference between what people call fiction and non-fiction. So in that sense, I'm like an early-18th-century person. I actually believe there's one way of writing. John Ralston Saul greatmindbelievepeople Anglo Saxons: To blame for everything. John Ralston Saul everythingblame Dictionary - opinion expressed as truth in alphabetical order. John Ralston Saul dictionaryopiniontruthorder Either God is alive, in which case he'll deal with us as he sees fit. Or he is dead, in which case he was never alive, it being unlikely that he died of old age. John Ralston Saul deadold-ageagegod
