"The idea of absolute freedom is fiction. It is based on the idea of an independent self. But in fact, there’s no such thing. There’s no self without other people. There’s no self without sunlight. There’s no self without dew. And water. And bees to pollinate the food we eat --- So the idea of behaving in a way that doesn’t acknowledge those reciprocal relationships is not really freedom, it’s indulgence."

"... The capacity for restraint based on knowledge and compassion is a genuine, though embattled, source of hope. Whenever the EPA proposes higher standards for emissions from smokestacks and cars, for example, critics attack the standards as too expensive, claiming that the richest country in the world can’t afford to pay the real price of energy, nor cut back on the use of electricity and gasoline in exchange for breathable air. For every voice that echoes Thoreau’s ‘Simplify, simplify,’ a dozen cry, ‘Amplify, amplify!’

"The present scale of human destructiveness is unprecedented, but the impulse to eat whatever’s in reach is entirely natural. What is unnatural, what comes only from culture, is reflection and regard for other life forms. We’re the only species capable of acting, through love and reason, to preserve our fellow creatures.