"The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future"
About this Quote
A journalist’s warning, delivered with the calm finality of a verdict: nature doesn’t need to be sentimental to be unforgiving. Mannes frames environmental destruction not as a “cause” but as a boomerang. The line’s punch comes from its shift in agency. We start as the actors - “we abuse,” “we kill” - and end as the acted upon. Revenge is not mythic; it’s accounting.
Her phrasing is strategically anthropomorphic. “Take their revenge” smuggles moral clarity into what could be dismissed as technical talk about soil depletion or species loss. It’s rhetorical judo: readers who might tune out charts and forecasts can’t ignore the implied consequence of being judged. Yet Mannes undercuts any melodrama with the clincher: “we are diminishing our future.” The “revenge” isn’t supernatural payback, it’s self-harm extended across time. The enemy is our own shortsighted extraction.
The subtext is aimed at a modern confidence game: the belief that humans can externalize costs indefinitely - dump waste “somewhere,” kill “something,” and still cash in on progress. Mannes exposes that as a fantasy of separation, as if economy and ecology live in different rooms. Her journalist’s instinct shows in the structure: plain verbs, no ornament, a chain of causality that reads like a headline you don’t want to see but can’t dispute.
Context matters: Mannes wrote in a century that baptized itself in industrial triumph and then discovered its side effects - poisoned rivers, smog, vanishing species, a planetary system that keeps receipts.
Her phrasing is strategically anthropomorphic. “Take their revenge” smuggles moral clarity into what could be dismissed as technical talk about soil depletion or species loss. It’s rhetorical judo: readers who might tune out charts and forecasts can’t ignore the implied consequence of being judged. Yet Mannes undercuts any melodrama with the clincher: “we are diminishing our future.” The “revenge” isn’t supernatural payback, it’s self-harm extended across time. The enemy is our own shortsighted extraction.
The subtext is aimed at a modern confidence game: the belief that humans can externalize costs indefinitely - dump waste “somewhere,” kill “something,” and still cash in on progress. Mannes exposes that as a fantasy of separation, as if economy and ecology live in different rooms. Her journalist’s instinct shows in the structure: plain verbs, no ornament, a chain of causality that reads like a headline you don’t want to see but can’t dispute.
Context matters: Mannes wrote in a century that baptized itself in industrial triumph and then discovered its side effects - poisoned rivers, smog, vanishing species, a planetary system that keeps receipts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nature |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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