Some of the homes that have been built in the last 10 years just appall me. Why do humans need huge homes? I was born poor and I didn’t know you bought clothes at anything but the Goodwill until I went to college. Some of our mentality about what it means to have a good life is, I think, not going to help us in the next 50 years. We have to think through how to choose a meaningful life where we’re helping one another in ways that really help the Earth.
Interpretation
This quote critiques materialism and emphasizes the importance of a meaningful life focused on helping others and the Earth.
Elinor Ostrom highlights the disparity between material wealth and the essence of a fulfilling life. She argues that the recent trend towards building excessively large homes symbolizes a misguided understanding of what constitutes a good life. Instead of accumulating material possessions, she suggests that true fulfillment comes from making choices that foster community support and environmental sustainability, particularly as society faces future challenges.
In practice
During a speech about sustainable living, one might quote this to emphasize the need for a shift in mindset.
What is missing from the policy analyst's tool kit -- and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organization -- is an adequately specified theory of collective action whereby a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.
What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved - versus just having somebody in Washington make a rule.
The power of a theory is exactly proportional to the diversity of situations it can explain.
There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.
Ours is a multi-religious country, a multi-lingual country; we have many different modes of worship. We believe in peaceful and harmonious co-existence.
Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.
Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted -- Nevermore!
Print encourages a sense of closure, a sense that what is found in a text has been finalized, has reached a state of completion.
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