A Quote by Donella Meadows

No one wants growth, constant expansion, physical swelling. Growth is not a human value; it's a means to the ends of sufficiency and security. Once we have enough, no one wants more, unless it is sold to us as a cheap substitute for something else, something non-material.

Donella Meadows

Quote Topics

Cheap Constant Else Ends Enough Expansion Growth Human Material Means More Once Physical Security Sold Something Something Else Substitute Sufficiency Swelling Unless Us Value Wants

Quote Author

Donella Meadows
American - Environmentalist
March 13, 1941 - February 20, 2001

We recognize that our progress as a species does not have to be defined in terms of wealth or material and physical growth any more than our progress as individuals has to be defined in terms of physical growth. Physical growth of the body reaches a limit, but the character and the soul of the individual continues to grow, or at least has a chance to continue, often to our last breath. It is simple minded to define our well being in material terms, when that well-being has an aesthetic dimension, and intellectual dimension, a moral dimension.

Wes Jackson

There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says anywhere but here.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is the eternal, inescapable law that growth comes only from work and preparation, whether the growth be material, mental, or spiritual. Work has no substitute.

J. Reuben Clark

National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail. So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that's a national security matter. Well, you're supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government. More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

Ben Bradlee

I think the reason that the Trump economic agenda is beneficial is, he is doing the right things. He wants to see growth, he wants to see to lower taxes, he wants to see this cash pile sitting outside the US return to the US. All of these things I think will be good for the US economy, and as I've said, if the US economy grows, the global economy benefits hugely.

Martin Gilbert

The standard growth theory tells us that economic growth in per capita basis comes from mainly two sources: capital deepening and total factor productivity growth, or TFP growth.

Toshihiko Fukui

Meditation cannot be purchased and no one can give it to you. You have to achieve it. It is not something outer, it is something inner, a growth, and that growth comes through awareness.

Rajneesh

But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever.

Stevie Smith

The troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it.

Kenneth E. Boulding

Being in a fandom is something you don't understand unless you're in one. I think it stems off of everyone wants more of something.

Anna Todd

Good ideas are not good enough. They need to be God ideas. Just because someone else’s methods work does not mean they will work for us. God plants a unique set of gifts within each of us as leaders, enabling us to do a particular work for Him in a particular way. If we deny those, opting for something else that appeals to us, we forsake the means by which God wants to give us success (1Timothy 4:14).

Phil Pringle

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something.

Oswald Chambers

The intellect of most persons is harnessed by innumerable wants. From the spiritual point of view, such a life is the lowest type of human existence. The highest type of human existence is free from all wants and is characterised by sufficiency or contentment.

Meher Baba

Human population growth is a problem in that most humans consume more than they need. The Earth's resources are now strained to sustain the needs and wants of the human population, which continues to escalate.

Sharon Gannon

To nourish the soul means to become kinder, more compassionate, wiser, and more loving, often through the making of difficult choices that foster growth rather than safety. The nourishment and growth of the soul is the very reason for human life.