Garrett Hardin

“In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.”

“An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.”

“However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious.”

“But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.”

“To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.”

“It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience.”

“A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.”

“The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort.”

“The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.”

“A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.”

“The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.”

“Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.”

“Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.”

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.”

“Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”

“The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.”

“The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers.”

“No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.”

“Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.”

“Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.”