Skip to content

There's been a revolution in the fields of anthropology and archaeology over the past thirty years, and increasingly people are coming to understand that life before agriculture and domestication — of animals and ourselves — was in fact largely one of leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, gender equality, and health.

— John Zerzan Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2002)

Another quote →

More quotes by John Zerzan

Everyone can feel the nothingness, the void, just beneath the surface of everyday routines and securities.

Elements of Refusal (1988)

Democratic forms have always cloaked the rule of elites.

A People's History of Civilization (2018)

Most fundamentally, I would see Anarchism as a synonym for anti-authoritarianism.

Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2008)

In the specialist culture of our bureaucratic-industrial age, the reliance on experts to interpret and evaluate inner life is in itself the most malignant and invasive reach of division of labor.

Future Primitive Revisited (2012)

If we once — and for so long — lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that’s overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history.

All John Zerzan quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Zerzan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.