“Why, alone of all the more-than-five-hundred-million, should I have to bear the burden of history?”

“You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...”

“Why should I worry about uncreating so much of human history? Why should I care that it will be worse than forgotten, that it will be unknown? Why should that seem to be a crime, when all of human history is an eyeblink compared to the billions of years the stars have shone?”

“The sixteen hundred dairies in California’s Central Valley alone produce more waste than a city of twenty-one million people-that’s more than the populations of London, New York, and Chicago combined.”

“Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found...That's out of three hundred million, total population. That breaks down to about one person in three hundred and twenty-five vanishing. Every year....Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's almost the same loss ratio experienced by herd animals on the African savannah to large predators.”

“You tell me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But if it were otherwise why should you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?Life is hard to bear: but do not pretend to be so tender! We are all of us pretty fine asses and asseses of burden!”