E. F. Schumacher
Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.Collection: Finance
An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.Collection: Attitude
Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.Collection: Attitude
The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.Collection: Technology
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.Collection: Courage
The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is.
Many people love in themselves what they hate in others.
Never let an inventor run a company. You can never get him to stop tinkering and bring something to market.
It might be said that it is the ideal of the employer to have production without employees and the ideal of the employee is to have income without work.
You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.
Few can contemplate without a sense of exhilaration the splendid achievements of practical energy and technical skill, which, from the latter part of the seventeenth century, were transforming the face of material civilization, and of which England was the daring, if not too scrupulous, pioneer.
If, however, economic ambitions are good servants, they are bad masters.
Anyone who thinks consumption can expand forever on a finite planet is either insane or an economist.Collection: Thinking
We must do what we conceive to be the right thing, and not bother our heads or burden our souls with whether we are going to be successful. Because if we don't do the right thing, we'll be doing the wrong thing, and we will just be part of the disease, and not a part of the cure.Collection: Success
Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology toward the organic, the gentle, the elegant and beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
Development does not start with goods; it starts with people and their education, organization, and discipline. Without these three, all resources remain latent, untapped, potential.Collection: Organization
An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.Collection: Practice
The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.Collection: Technology
The real problems of our planet are not economic or technical, they are philosophical. The philosophy of unbridled materialism is being challenged by events.Collection: Philosophy
The purpose of work is to give people a chance to utilize and develop their faculties; to enable them to overcome their ego-centeredness by joining others in a common task; and to bring for the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.Collection: People
There are three things healthy people most need to do - to be creatively productive, to render service, and to act in accordance with their moral impulses. In all three respects modern society frustrates most people most of the time.Collection: People
I cannot predict the wind but I can have my sail ready.Collection: Wind
An entirely new system of thought is needed, a system based on attention to people, and not primarily attention to goods. . . .Collection: People
Study how a society uses its land, and you can come to pretty reliable conclusions as to what its future will be.Collection: Land
The best aid to give is intellectual aid, a gift of useful knowledge. A gift of knowledge is infinitely preferable to a gift of material things.Collection: Giving
At present, there can be little doubt that the whole of mankind is in mortal danger, not because we are short of scientific and technological know-how, but because we tend to use it destructively, without wisdom. More education can help us only if produces more wisdom.Collection: Doubt
Even bigger machines, entailing even bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the nonviolent, the elegant and beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
Man's needs are infinite, and infinitude can be achieved only in the spiritual realm, never in the material.Collection: Spiritual
Any intelligent fool can invent further complications, but it takes a genius to retain, or recapture, simplicity.Collection: Intelligent
Many people love in themselves what they hate in othersCollection: Hate
Modern man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing sideCollection: Nature
Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.Collection: Wind
Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
There can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.Collection: Sacred
The fundamental task is to achieve smallness within large organisation.Collection: Tasks
The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure.Collection: Clever
The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product.Collection: Men
Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation to man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations: as long as you have not shown it to be "uneconomic" you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow, and prosper.Collection: Men
Much of the economic decay of southeast Asia (as of many other parts of the world) is undoubtedly due to a heedless and shameful neglect of trees.Collection: Tree
The generosity of the Earth allows us to feed all mankind; we know enough about ecology to keep the Earth a healthy place; there is enough room on the Earth, and there are enough materials, so that everybody can have adequate shelter; we are quite competent enough to produce sufficient supplies of necessities so that no one need live in misery.Collection: Generosity
The technology of mass production is inherently violent, ecologically damaging, self-defeating in terms of non-renewable resources, and stultifying for the human person.Collection: Technology
From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a "disutility"; to work is to make a sacrifice of one's leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice.Collection: Sacrifice
It has been universally recognized, in all authentic teachings of mankind, that every being born into this world has to work, not merely to keep himself alive, but to strive towards perfection.Collection: Teaching
Nobody really likes large-scale organizations; nobody likes to take orders from a superior who takes orders from a superior who takes orders.Collection: Order
Every increase of needs tends to increase one's independence on outside forces over which one cannont have control and therefore increases existential fearCollection: Independence
I certainly never feel discouraged. I can't myself raise the winds that might blow us or this ship into a better world. But I can at least put up the sail so that when the winds comes, I can catch it.Collection: Blow
You can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you needCollection: Book
Many have no desire to be in it, because their work does not interest them, providing them with neither challenge nor satisfaction, and has no other merit in their eyes than that it leads to a pay-packet at the end of the week.Collection: Eye
Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's enduring powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed.Collection: Imagination
The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little.Collection: Littles