Quotes from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology toward the organic, the gentle, the elegant and beautiful.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment 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.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“If greed were not the master of modern man--ably assisted by envy--how could it be that the frenzy of economism does not abate as higher "standards of living" are attained, and that it is precisely the richest societies which pursue their economic advantage with the greatest ruthlessness? How could we explain the almost universal refusal on the part of the rulers of the rich societies--where organized along private enterprise or collective enterprise lines--to work towards the humanisation of work? It is only necessary to assert that something would reduce the "standard of living" and every debate is instantly closed. That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of of "bread and circuses" can compensate for the damage done--these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence--because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Economic development is something much wider and deeper than economics, let alone econometrics. Its roots lie outside the economic sphere, in education, organisation, discipline and, beyond that, in political independence and a national consciousness of self-reliance.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“What do I miss, as a human being, if I have never heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The answer is: Nothing. And what do I miss by not knowing Shakespeare? Unless I get my understanding from another source, I simply miss my life. Shall we tell our children that one thing is as good as another-- here a bit of knowledge of physics, and there a bit of knowledge of literature? If we do so, the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, because that normally is the time it takes from the birth of an idea to its full maturity when it fills the minds of a new generation and makes them think by it.

Science cannot produce ideas by which we could live.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“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.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence. For it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse. Education, far from ranking as man's greatest resource, will then be an agent of destruction.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“The all-pervading disease of the modern world is the total imbalance between city and countryside, an imbalance in terms of wealth, power, culture, attraction and hope. The former has become over-extended and the latter has atrophied. The city has become the universal magnet, while rural life has lost its savour. Yet it remains an unalterable truth that, just as a sound mind depends on a sound body, so the health of the cities depends on the health of the rural areas. The cities, with all their wealth, are merely secondary producers, while primary production, the precondition of all economic life, takes place in the countryside. The prevailing lack of balance, based on the age-old exploitation of countryman and raw material producer, today threatens all countries throughout the world, the rich even more than the poor. To restore a proper balance between city and rural life is perhaps the greatest task in front of modern man.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“A man who uses an imaginary map thinking that it is a true one, is likely to be worse off than someone with no map at all.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“How could we even begin to disarm greed and envy? Perhaps by being much less greedy and envious ourselves; perhaps by resisting the temptation of letting our luxuries become needs; and perhaps by even scrutinising our needs to see if they cannot be simplified and reduced.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Fossil fuels are merely a part of the “natural capital” which we steadfastly insist on treating as expendable, as if it were income, and by no means the most important part. If we squander our fossil fuels, we threaten civilisation; but if we squander the capital represented by living nature around us, we threaten life itself.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again,”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“How can one talk about the economics of small independent countries? How can one discuss a problem that is a non-problem? There is no such thing as the viability of states or of nations, there is only a problem of viability of people: people, actual persons like you and me, are viable when they can stand on their own feet and earn their keep. You do not make nonviable people viable by putting large numbers of them into one huge community, and you do not make viable people non-viable by splitting a large community into a number of smaller, more intimate, more coherent and more manageable groups. All this is perfectly obvious and there is absolutely nothing to argue about. Some people ask: 'What happens when a country, composed of one rich province and several poor ones, falls apart because the rich province secedes?' Most probably the answer is: 'Nothing very much happens.' The rich will continue to be rich and the poor will continue to be poor. 'But if, before secession, the rich province had subsidised the poor, what happens then?' Well then, of course, the subsidy might stop. But the rich rarely subsidise the poor; more often they exploit them.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“The economics of permanence implies a profound reorientation of science and technology, which have to open their doors to wisdom and, in fact, have to incorporate wisdom into their very structure... Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed, and any shortage of supplies, no matter how slight, would immediately divide the world into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ along entirely novel lines. The specially favoured areas, such as the Middle East and North Africa, would attract envious attention on a scale scarcely imaginable today,”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment 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.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“taking pride in their own optimism that ‘science will find a way out’.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Already, there is overwhelming evidence that the great self-balancing system of nature is becoming increasingly unbalanced in particular respects and at specific points.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“The condition of Lake Erie, to which Professor Barry Commoner, among others, has drawn attention, should serve as a sufficient warning. Another decade or two,”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“The greatest danger invariably arises from the ruthless application, on a vast scale, of partial knowledge such as we are currently witnessing in the application of nuclear energy, of the new chemistry in agriculture, of transportation technology, and countless other things.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“It is moreover obvious that men organised in small units will take better care of their bit of land or other natural resources than anonymous companies or megalomanic governments which pretend to themselves that the whole universe is their legitimate quarry.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence – because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modem sense. because such prosperity, if attainable at all. is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Economics operates legitimately and usefully within a 'given' framework which lies altogether outside the economic calculus. We might say that economics does not stand on its own feet, or that it is a 'derived' body of thought - derived from meta- economics. If the economist fails to study meta-economics, or, even worse. If he remains unaware of the fact that there are boundaries to the applicability of the economic calculus, he is likely to fall into a similar kind of error to that of certain medieval theologians who tried to settle questions of physics by means of biblical quotations. Every science is beneficial within its proper limits but becomes evil and destructive as soon as it transgresses them. The”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“Nothing makes economic sense unless its continuance for a long time can be projected without running into absurdities.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“In an industrial society, psychological benefits such as security, fulfilment, status, solidarity and conviviality are all delivered primarily through the jobs that people have or the work that they do.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, quote from Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

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