A Quote by Alan Thein Durning

Who would have predicted a century ago that the richest civilizations in history would be made up of polluted tracts of suburban development dominated by the private automobile, shopping malls, and a throwaway economy? Surely, this is not the ultimate fulfillment of our destiny.

Alan Thein Durning

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Automobile Century Civilizations Destiny Development Dominated Economy Fulfillment History Made Malls Our Our Destiny Predicted Private Richest Shopping Suburban Surely Ultimate Up Urban Development Would Would Be

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Alan Thein Durning
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Born: 1964

I think we ought to all take a step back and remember where we were 24, 48 hours ago, a week ago, two weeks ago - the prospect that was hanging out there that America would not honor its obligations for the first time in its history, and the impact that would have on our economy and the global economy.

Jay Carney

Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls. Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.

Bill Bryson

We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.

Charles Kettering

A limit on the automobile population of the United States would be the best of news for our cities. The end of automania would save open spaces, encourage wiser land use, and contribute greatly to ending suburban sprawl.

Stewart Udall

The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is an aberration, now itself headed for the junk heap of history.

Lester R. Brown

Lovemaking surely must be, for human beings at our present state of development, one of the more private enterprises. Who would want a witness to that entire self-abandonment and helplessness?

Katherine Anne Porter

History is made of empires, and the United States was by far and away the greatest, richest, and fairest empire that had every dominated the earth. Inevitably, it would fall. Empires always did. But we were lucky, you said. We got to participate in the most fascinating social experiment ever attempted.

Lionel Shriver

We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.

Bill Bryson

Intellectual property is the oil of the 21 century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All today's richest men have made their money out of intellectual property.

Mark Getty

For a suburban man aged 30 to 40, hell is going clothing shopping on a Saturday afternoon. There are about 5,000 other things they would put on the list ahead of clothes shopping.

Richard Hayne

If the Taliban comes back to power, the impact would be devastating. A country that has made great strides, in terms of development indicators, would take a huge step backwards. Afghanistan's national economy would be devastated.

Chris Alexander

Shopping malls across the county are dying fast, and my images of them are very nostalgic for most people that grew up attending these malls. These malls were communal spaces. These were gigantic chat rooms before the Internet existed. You went to the mall to meet and communicate with others, not just to shop.

Seph Lawless

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

Ray Bradbury

The century would seek to dominate nature as it had never been dominated, would attack the idea of war, poverty and natural catastrophe as never before. The century would create death, devastation and pollution as never before. Yet the century was now attached to the idea that man must take his conception of life out to the stars.

Norman Mailer

If history could prove and teach us anything, it would be the private ownership of the means of production as a necessary requisite of civilization and material well-being. All civilizations have up to now been based on private property. Only nations committed to the principle of private property have risen above penury and produced science, art, and literature. There is no experience to show that any other social system could provide mankind with any of the achievements of civilization.

Ludwig von Mises

Maybe one way to think about it would be in the context of the historical development of germ theory. The problem of childbed fever was not significant until the development of a male-dominated medical establishment made possible the situation in which a professional might move from touching a corpse (for the purposes of study) to putting his unwashed hands up against, or into, a woman in labor.

Laura Mullen

A Quote by Alan Thein Durning

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