A Quote by E. F. Schumacher
The richer a society, the more impossible it becomes to do worthwhile things without immediate pay-off.
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Economic policies absorb almost the entire attention of government, and at the same time become ever more impotent. The simplest things, which only fifty years ago one could do without difficulty, cannot get done any more. The richer a society, the more impossible it become to do worthwhile things without immediate payoff.
...our societies appear to be intent on immediate consumption rather than on investment for the future. We are piling up enormous debts and exploiting the natural environment in a manner which suggests that we have no real sense of any worthwhile future. Just as a society which believes in the future saves in the present in order to invest in the future, so a society without belief spends everything now and piles up debts for future generations to settle. "Spend now and someone else will pay later."
Western society is a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives; it is a society of boundless private charity; it is a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth.
As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.
People go into debt when they judge it beneficial to borrow money against their future earnings. Few can afford to buy a house outright, but many consider it worthwhile to take out a loan, which they will service and pay off over time, for the immediate privilege of living and investing in a house.
Budget thy expenses that thou mayest have coins to pay for thy necessities, to pay for thy enjoyments, and to gratify thy worthwhile desires without spending more than nine-tenths of thy earnings.
A society which discards those who are weak and non-productive risks exaggerating the development of reason, organisation, aggression and the desire to dominate. It becomes a society without a heart, without kindness - a rational and sad society, lacking celebration, divided within itself and given to competition, rivalry and, finally, violence.
Without alcohol I'd be richer by two million dollars that went to pay lawyer's fees.
The part we create from can't be touched by anything our parents did, or society did. That part is unsullied, uncorrupted; soundproof, waterproof, and bulletproof. In fact, the more troubles we've got, the better and richer that part becomes.
I perceive a necessary gap between seeing and being. I would not be able to have said certain things if I had been under the obligation to unify the word and the deed. As it is I can let my words reach out and net impossible things - things that are impossible for me to do. And this is a way to pay the price for saying or seeing things.
I don't know if there's a proper way to define toughness in a runner, but I do know that there comes a sudden moment when the mindset shifts. The impossible becomes doable, or at least attemptable. The long run goes from two miles to four to ten to fifteen, until it becomes routine at some point deep in an intense training cycle to knock off a couple hours without giving it a thought.
In dialogue scenes, my favorite moments are when people aren't talking because you can cut to the heart of the matter much more quickly, often with a look. People hide things in words. When you don't have words to hide things in, it becomes much more direct and much more immediate of a connection.
Those who achieve great things are the ones willing to be scared but not scared off. If you dream big and take risks, impossible becomes just a word.
I believe that our country is a richer, more vibrant society precisely because it is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society.
More paper money cannot make a society richer, of course, – it is just more printed-paper. Otherwise, why is it that there are still poor countries and poor people around? But more money makes its monopolistic producer (the central bank) and its earliest recipients (the government and big, government-connected banks and their major clients) richer at the expense of making the money's late and latest receivers poorer.
We've witnessed so many revolutions in our society. Think of transportation, photography, or communications. Things once unimaginable have become seemingly impossible to live without.
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