27 John Ralston Saul Quotes for You to Enjoy

John Ralston Saul

Canadian Author

Born: Jun 19, 1947

Democracy European Freedom God People You

Related authors: Ann Voskamp Douglas Coupland Farley Mowat Justine Musk Malcolm Gladwell Merle Shain Michael Ondaatje Rob Pike

People who believe in freedom of expression have spent several centuries fighting against censorship, in whatever form. We have to be certain the 'Net' doesn't become the site for technological book burning. John Ralston Saul

You can always tell you're in deep trouble when people start thinking money's real. John Ralston Saul

You People Money Trouble Thinking Tell Always Real Deep Start

Everyone has an equal right to inequality. John Ralston Saul

Everyone Equal Equal Right Inequality Right

In the European tradition, rivers are seen as divisions between peoples. But in the Aboriginal tradition, rivers are seen as the glue, the highway, the linkage between people, not the separation. And that's the history of Canada: our rivers and lakes were our highways. John Ralston Saul

History People Seen Separation Our Aboriginal Rivers Divisions Between Highway Highways Glue Tradition Were Canada The History Of Lakes European

People are always saying it's the end of the Gutenberg era. More to the point, it's a return to an oral era. The Gutenberg galaxy was about the written word. At its best, the digital era is part of the rediscovery of the oral. At its worst, it's a Kafkaesque victory of the bureaucratic over the imagination. John Ralston Saul

Saying Best People Word Victory Digital Imagination Worst About Gutenberg More Point Part Written Written Word Over Return Always Era End Oral Bureaucratic Galaxy

How can we possibly say the root of the Canadian approach to citizenship and immigration comes from Europe or the United States? I mean, we just don't do the same things. What I've said, very simply, is that unlike other colonies, for the first 250 years approximately, indigenous people were either the dominant force or an equal force. John Ralston Saul

People Immigration First Other Approach Unlike Say States Approximately Possibly Citizenship Indigenous Indigenous People Colonies Simply Equal Force Said How Were Years Dominant Very Dominant Force Canadian Same Just Same Things Either Mean Root Europe United United States Things

Some people don't like the 'comeback' because that suggests they went somewhere, which they didn't. That isn't what I mean. In my mind, people were doing well, and then they went right down, and they made a comeback. It's not that they went anywhere. It's that their fortunes went way down, and then they came back. John Ralston Saul

The 19th-century pure capitalist model of society was a pyramid, concentrations of enormous wealth in a small group at the top, a not very big middle-class in the middle, and an enormous percentage of the population in the bottom part of the pyramid. John Ralston Saul

Wealth Pure Big Group Society Enormous Top Percentage Small Small Group Bottom Part Pyramid Very Model Middle Capitalist Population

In my mind, there's not a great difference between what people call fiction and non-fiction. So in that sense, I'm like an early-18th-century person. I actually believe there's one way of writing. John Ralston Saul

Great People Writing Mind Sense Believe Way One-Way Between Like Call Non-Fiction Person Difference Fiction Actually

Nothing is absolute, with the debatable exceptions of this statement and death. John Ralston Saul

Death Nothing Statement Absolute Exceptions Debatable

Unregulated competition is a naive metaphor for anarchy. John Ralston Saul

Competition Anarchy Naive Metaphor

If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state. John Ralston Saul

Democracy Capitalism Natural Will Free State System Run Corrupt Attempt Allowed Undermine After Which Social Natural State Social System

In Canada, there's a surprising worship of managerialism versus ownership and wealth creation. There's a real problem in this country with believing that management is the answer to our problems. John Ralston Saul

Management Problem Wealth Problems Country Ownership Creation Our Worship Answer Real Surprising Versus Canada Real Problem Believing

Democracy, of course, requires strong demands from the public. John Ralston Saul

Democracy Strong Demands Course Public Requires

Democracy is extremely complex; it is extremely concrete. It's about constantly choosing, finding, developing practical options within the common good. Constantly searching for how to express in a practical way the common good, not in some grand way, some grand and absolute way, but in a very comfortable way. John Ralston Saul

Good Democracy Way Extremely Complex Finding Constantly Some About Absolute Developing Practical Comfortable Within How Concrete Very Options Common Common Good Grand Choosing Express Searching

If you live in a democracy, it's very tiring to be always surrounded by great and high abstract generalisations which are, in fact, the most banal and naive cliches dug out of second-rate movements of the late 19th century. John Ralston Saul

Great Democracy You Live Second-Rate Late Out High Fact Abstract Naive Most Cliches Always Dug Surrounded Banal Very Movements In Fact Tiring Which Century

In the early 1980s, the government of New Zealand fell into the hands of true believers, globalist believers, and they embraced the theory of inevitability perhaps more completely than anybody else. And it solved in the very short term some of their debt problems, but in the medium- and long-term, it left them in real economic trouble. John Ralston Saul

Government Problems Trouble Medium Else Solved Embraced Some More Economic True Long-Term True Believers Term New Perhaps Fell Inevitability Real Left Debt Very Than Hands Short Anybody Anybody Else New Zealand Short-Term Them Theory Zealand Believers Early

What nobody wants to discuss is whether or not the black-and-white argument about trade - you're either a free trader or you're a protectionist - is the right one. It's the old 19th century argument. John Ralston Saul

You Old Free Argument Right One About Nobody Trade Trader Discuss Wants Whether Either Century Right

I've been up in the Arctic Circle where they have hockey rinks that don't have any heating. So it's - 40 C outside, it's - 55 inside. Or there's a social centre but no budget for anybody to run any programs. Stuff we wouldn't accept in Winnipeg, but we let it go on and on and on. John Ralston Saul

Circle Programs Run Inside Arctic Outside Stuff Budget Accept Go Been Up Any Heating Hockey Anybody Where Centre Social

There's two ways of dealing with fears of mortality. One of them is to hide, so every day you wear the same suit and go to the same job... and the other is to reinvent yourself. I think I reinvent myself all the time. The idea that I would have to be one thing for the rest of my life would just be a soul-destroying idea. John Ralston Saul

Life Time Myself Day You Yourself Every Day Hide Job Rest Fears My Life Just Be Every Think Other Ways Would One Thing Wear Mortality Idea Dealing Go Same Just Them Reinvent Thing Two Suit

Keynesianism, if you add its flexible, muscular form during the Depression to its more rigid postwar version, lasted forty-five years. Our own Globalization, with its technocratic and technological determinism and market idolatry, had thirty years. And now it, too, is dead. John Ralston Saul

Depression You Own Lasted Thirty Too Add Market Our Rigid Postwar Determinism More Had Dead Globalization Idolatry Years Version Form Flexible Forty-Five Now Technological Muscular

Grand economic theories rarely last more than a few decades. Some, if they are particularly in tune with technological or political events, may make it to half a century. Beyond that, little short of military force can keep them in place. John Ralston Saul

Events Political Half Few Military Rarely Some More Economic Beyond Particularly Force Make Than Decades May Short Tune Grand Place Little Them Century Theories Military Force Keep Technological Last

Certain governments are suggesting that bloggers and tweeters aren't 'real' writers and, so, don't merit protection. A writer is anyone from a Nobel laureate to a debut blogger. They all get PEN's attention. John Ralston Saul

Protection Pen Laureate Writer Writers Nobel Attention Merit Real Bloggers Governments Debut Get Anyone Certain Suggesting

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