Contrary Assumption

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. ...  We have been wrong.  We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us.

-- Wendell Berry (5 August 1934 -), American philosopher, poet, and social activist, The Long-Legged House (1969), "A Native Hill"