A Quote by Lewis Mumford

In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage.

Lewis Mumford

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Achieve Both Cage Century Close Collective Come Community Could Devices Dogma Economy Efficiency End Every Extravagant Forms Freeing Functions Futility Gained Higher Increasing Invented Labor Limit Living Mankind Mechanical Name New Nineteenth Century Only Our Own Processes Real Remained Saving Set Speed Squirrel Stable Standard Thousand Through Time Wants Wasteful Wasting Would Would Be

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Lewis Mumford
American - Sociologist
October 19, 1895 - January 26, 1990

There are winners and there are losers. And as much as we would like to help the losers, if we do it in the way that directs the limited capital of the society to support the low-productivity parts of the economy, it means that the rest of the economy - our overall standard of living - will not rise as much as it could.

Alan Greenspan

We humans have had from time unknown the compulsion to name things and thus to be able to deal with them. The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it. And in ancient thought the name itself has power, so that to know someone's name is to have a certain power over him. And in some societies, as you know, there was a public name and a real or secret name, which would not be revealed to others.

Katherine Paterson

We're becoming a planet of a thousand new major cities. The economy of the 21st century is a city-building economy. It's within our power to make it a carbon zero one, too; and to be blunt, civilization depends on our success.

Alex Steffen

Health should be easy. The good news is that, through the increasing use of mobile devices with their real-time networking capabilities and by addressing health collaboratively in our communities, we're accelerating the 'democratization of health care.'

Bruce Broussard

Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants: Increasing efficiency Increasing opportunity Increasing emergence Increasing complexity Increasing diversity Increasing specialization Increasing ubiquity Increasing freedom Increasing mutualism Increasing beauty Increasing sentience Increasing structure Increasing evolvability

Kevin Kelly

The system is not intended as a substitute for private savings, pension plans, and insurance protection. It is, rather, intended as the foundation upon which these other forms of protection can be soundly built. Thus, the individual's own work, his planning and his thrift will bring him a higher standard of living upon his retirement, or his family a higher standard of living in the event of his death, than would otherwise be the case. Hence the system both encourages thrift and self-reliance, and helps to prevent destitution in our national life.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is a balance, a kind of standoff between the time continuum and the human entity, our frail bundle of soma and psyche. We eventually succumb to time, it's true, but time depends on us. We carry it in our muscles and genes, pass it on to the next set of time-factoring creatures, our brown-eyed daughters and jug-eared sons, or how would the world keep going. Never mind the time theorists, the cesium devices that measure the life and death of the smallest silvery trillionth of a second.... We were the only crucial clocks, our minds and bodies, way stations for the distribution of time.

Don DeLillo

I absolutely hate technology, and I'm computer illiterate, and I never use any labor-saving devices although I'm not convinced that a computer is a labor-saving device.

Chuck Close

What is worrisome about that is the U.S. standard of living. I think it is very difficult to envision our standard of living being preserved if we are in an economy where all people do is flip hamburgers, wait on people in stores, and sue each other. It’s not much of a basis for an economy.

Wilbur Ross

Only by transforming our own economy to one of peace can we make possible economic democracy in the Third World or our own country. The present economy generates wars to protect its profits and its short-term interests, while squandering the future. Unless we transform the economy, we cannot end war.

Starhawk

The capital amassed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through various forms of slave economy is still in circulation, said De Jong, still bearing interest, increasing many times over and continually burgeoning anew.

W. G. Sebald

I was working in a church in Florida as a youth intern, which means I really didn't do much other than staple stuff. I'm from Dallas, Texas, and every time my grandmother would call-she would call me any time of the day-I'd be home answering the phone. She was like, "What do you do all day?" and sarcastically I would say, "Well, I'm trying to chalk off the next year to spend time finding a band name." And she said, "Well mercy me, why don't you get a real job?" I thought, "Wait a minute. That's the perfect name." That kind of freed up my year but that's where the name came from.

Bart Millard

The pattern is clear: if we could speed up time, it would seem as if the global economy is crashing against the earth - the Great Collision.

James Gustave Speth

Avoid fragmentation: Find your focus and seek simplicity. Purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and economy of effort-expanding the minimum time and energy necessary to achieve desired goals.

Dan Millman

As I have been arguing for a long time now, there is a real need not simply for a political economy of wealth but also for a political economy of speed.

Paul Virilio

It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great; I wish that they would try a little more to make great men; that they would set less value on the work and more upon the workman; that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak; and that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised to make an energetic people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.

Alexis de Tocqueville

A Quote by Lewis Mumford

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