Parker J. Palmer

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

“Science requires an engagement with the world, a live encounter between the knower and the known.”

“If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture - it comes from manufacturing. We do not believe that we 'grow' our lives - we believe that we 'make' them. Just listen to how we use the word in everyday speech: we make time, make friends, make meaning, make money, make a living, make love.”

“We are whiplashed between an arrogant overestimation of ourselves and a servile underestimation of ourselves.”