E. F. Schumacher
E. F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacherwas an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became popularised in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s. He is best known for his critique of Western economies and his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth16 August 1911
E. F. Schumacher quotes about
men envy greed
It is doubly chimerical to build peace on economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict.
art men ordinary
True art is the intermediary between man's ordinary nature and his higher potentialities.
men substance gross
The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product.
men thinking long
Modern economic thinking...is peculiarly unable to consider the long term and to appreciate man's dependence on the natural world.
men demand world
The modern world tends to be skeptical about everything that makes demands on man's higher faculties. But it is not at all skeptical about skepticism, which demands hardly anything.
spiritual peace men
Man's needs are infinite, and infinitude can be achieved only in the spiritual realm, never in the material.
spiritual mean men
No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilization could sustain itself on such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economical affairs of man as if people did not matter at all.
men long soul
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.
nature men battle
Modern man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side
men poison benefits
Scientific and technological "solutions" which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived or how great their superficial attraction.
men views doubt
The truly educated man is not a man who knows a bit of everything, not even a man who knows all the details of all subjects (if such a thing were possible). The whole man in fact may have little detailed knowledge of facts and theories... but he will be truly in touch with the centre. He will not be in doubt about his basic convictions, about his own view on the meaning and purpose of life. He may not be able to explain these matters in words, but the conduct of his life will show a certain sureness of touch which stems from his inner clarity.
men greed doe
If greed were not the master of modern man, how could it be that the frenzy of economic activity 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?
nature men fellow-man
We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature...
technology men self
The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.