Frances Lappe Quotes & Sayings

Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. — Frances Moore Lappe

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a dyed-in-the-woo l possibilist! By this, I mean with an eco-mind, we see that everything's connected and change is the only constant. — Frances Moore Lappe

We can all reprogram our brain's responses by putting ourselves into new, initially uncomfortable situations. We'll learn fear might not mean 'stop'; I've come to believe fear usually means 'go. — Frances Moore Lappe

With an eco-mind, we get ready for surprises, for we realize it's just not possible to know what's possible. — Frances Moore Lappe

Much agricultural land which might be growing food is being used instead to 'grow' money (in the form of coffee, tea, etc.). — Frances Moore Lappe

I also believe that it's almost impossible for people to change alone. We need to join with others who will push us in our thinking and challenge us to do things we didn't believe ourselves capable of. — Frances Moore Lappe

Our heavily meat-centered culture is at the very heart of our waste of the earth's productivity ... — Frances Moore Lappe

I understand, of course, that grain-fed meat is not the cause of the world hunger problem-and eating some of it doesn't directly take food out of the mouths of starving people-but it is, to me, a symbol and a symptom of the basic irrationality of a food system that's divorced from human needs. Therefore, using less meat can be an important way to take responsibility. Making conscious choices about what we eat, based on what the earth can sustain and what our bodies need, can help remind us that our whole society must begin to balance sustainable production with human need. — Frances Moore Lappe

We'll learn fear might not mean 'stop'; personally, I've come to believe fear usually means 'go.' It always means listen closely. — Frances Moore Lappe

Imagine sitting down to an eight ounce steak, and then, imagine the room filled wit 45 to 50 people with empty bowls ... For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a cup pf cooked cereal grains. — Frances Moore Lappe

There is no formula. We all must become spirited inventors. There's no single answer - not even a single starting point. Even the 'teachers' ... don't offer us the answer. They do offer us approaches, ways of thinking, possibilities we can adapt, and hope that might generate in us wholly new ideas. — Frances Moore Lappe

Each of us carries within us a worldview, a set of assumptions about how the world works - what some call a paradigm - that forms the very questions we allow ourselves to ask, and determines our view of future possibilities. — Frances Moore Lappe

You have increasing poverty and increasing wealth. Fine food is one way to dispense with a lot of money ... It's understanding that our daily choices about food connect us to a worldwide economic system. And that economic system - not scarcity - creates worldwide hunger for millions of people. — Frances Moore Lappe

The notion that economic life is a distinct realm, governed by immutable laws of narrow self-interest, is giving way to a much older notion: economic life is only one strand in the rich web of human relationships. — Frances Moore Lappe

Individuality doesn't just mean individualism-standing alone. It means developing one's unique gifts, and being able to share them for the enjoyment of oneself and others. — Frances Moore Lappe

Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully. — Frances Moore Lappe

This is the first generation to know that the choices we're making have ultimate consequences. It's a time when you either choose life or you choose death ... Going along with the current order means that you're choosing death. — Frances Moore Lappe

I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. — Frances Moore Lappe

Hope is a stance, not an assessment. — Frances Moore Lappe

Hope is not wishful thinking. It's not a temperament we're born with. It is a stance toward life that we can choose ... not not. The real question for me, though, is whether m hope is effective, whether it produces or is just where I hide to ease my own pain. — Frances Moore Lappe

Democracy is not what we have. It is what we do. — Frances Moore Lappe

For me hope isn't wishful thinking or blind faith about the future. It's a stance toward life - one of curiosity and humility. — Frances Moore Lappe

Luxury as beauty has nothing to do with a particular place or an object's price tag. It is seeing with eyes for beauty. Once we cut the automatic but learned connection between buying stuff and pleasure, we can actively cultivate new connections - a sense of freedom as we shed draining habits and discover new pleasures in seeing and creating beauty all around us. — Frances Moore Lappe

In a world where only a minor portion of the land is really well suited to agriculture, man is using much of the best land with dubious efficiency. — Frances Moore Lappe

I believe it is possible that we can turn today's breakdown into a planetary breakthrough on one condition. We can do it if we can break free of a set of dominant but misleading ideas that are taking us down. — Frances Moore Lappe

Hunger is a people-made phenomenon, so the central issue is power: the power of those who make the decisions about what is grown and who, or what, it's grown for. — Frances Moore Lappe

Despite a tenfold increase in the use of pesticides between 1947 and 1974 (in the US), crop losses due to pests have ... remained at an estimated 33%. Losses due to insects alone have nearly doubled, ... from 7% in the 1942-1951 period to about 13% in 1974. — Frances Moore Lappe

Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities. — Frances Moore Lappe

Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy, — Frances Moore Lappe

My whole mission in life is to help us find the power we lack to create the world we want. — Frances Moore Lappe

Freedom is not the capacity to do whatever we please; freedom is the capacity to make intelligent choices. — Frances Moore Lappe

We got hooked on grain-fed meat just as we got hooked on gas guzzling automobiles. Big cars made sense only when oil was cheap; grain-fed meat makes sense only because the true costs of producing it are not counted. — Frances Moore Lappe

[O]ur greatest contributions to the cause of freedom and development overseas is not what we do over there, but what we do right here at home. — Frances Moore Lappe

The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth. — Frances Moore Lappe

Every choice we make can be a celebration of the world we want. — Frances Moore Lappe

Our food system takes abundant grain,which people can't afford,and shrinks it into meat,which better-off people will pay for. — Frances Moore Lappe

The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves. — Frances Moore Lappe

No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if people go hungry ... If some go without food they have surely been deprived of all power. The existence of hunger belies the existence of democracy. — Frances Moore Lappe

Honest hope has an edge. It's messy. It requires that we let go of all pat answers, all preconceived formulas, all confidence that our sailing will be smooth. It's not a resting point. Honest hope is movement. — Frances Moore Lappe

What an extraordinary time to be alive. We're the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life. — Frances Moore Lappe

Hope is not what we find in evidence, it's what we become in action. — Frances Moore Lappe