Who Said It: God-Emperor Leto II or Greta Thunberg?

One is a visionary who thinks in the long term about the future of the humanity but often stakes out incendiary or extreme-seeming positions on here-and-now issues that some argue damage the credibility of the overall cause. The other is a climate activist. Can you tell who said what?

1.       Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.

2.       We have to tell it like it is. Because if there are no positive things to tell, then what should we do, should we spread false hope? We can’t do that, we have to tell the truth.

3.       I am the most ardent people-watcher who ever lived.

4.       Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most.

5.       It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction?

6.       That is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m not the one who we should be listening to. And I say that all the time.

7.       We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences.

8.       Only fools prefer the past!

9.       Almost everything is black and white.

10.     If everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame.

Answers: Leto, Thunberg, Leto, Leto, Leto, Thunberg, Thunberg, Leto, Thunberg, Thunberg

2. and 6. come from a Financial Times interview and a Democracy Now interview, both from 2019. 7., 9., and 10. come from a book called No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. 1., 3., 4., 5., and 8. come from God-Emperor of Dune.