#utopia

I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears. ↗

— Shelby Foote

#perfection #utopia #boredom

Utopia means elsewhere. ↗

— John Malkovich

#means #utopia

Global warming has melted the polar ice caps, raised the levels of the oceans and flooded the earth's great cities. Despite its evident prosperity, New Jersey is scarcely Utopia. ↗

— Godfried Danneels

#cities #despite #earth #evident #flooded

The commune movement is part of a reawakening of belief in the possibilities for utopia that existed in the nineteenth century and exist again today, a belief that by creating the right social institution, human satisfaction and growth can be achieved. ↗

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

#again #belief #century #commune #creating

Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin. ↗

— David Graeber

#blueprint #capitalism #centralization #planning #social-change

I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia. ↗

— Marguerite Young

#been #cause #i #leader #lost

We can only know what we can truly imagine. Finally what we see comes from ourselves. ↗

— Marge Piercy

#utopia #imagination

There is no way I can avoid thinking about the kind of world I belong to. The abuse of utopias disfigures everything. ↗

— Floriano Martins

#life #utopia #world #life

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#utopia #progress

We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. ↗

— Lionel Trilling

#authoritarian #believe #cynical #form #heart