37 Quotes by Amory Lovins

Nature does not compromise; a pelican is not a compromise between a crow and otter, it is just a pelican. Nature makes no compromises; any inefficient products are recalled to the manufacturer!

If you ask the wrong question, of course, you get the wrong answer. We find in design it's much more important and difficult to ask the right question. Once you do that, the right answer becomes obvious.

Energy-saving technologies keep improving faster than they're applied, so efficiency is an ever larger and cheaper resource.

Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.

In the model that we grew up with, governments rule physical territory in which national economies function, and strong economies support hegemonic military power. In the new model, already emerging under our noses, economic decisions don't pay much attention to national sovereignty in a world where more than half of the one hundred or two hundred largest economic entities are not countries but companies.

I once met an economist who believed that everything was fungible for money, so I suggested he enclose himself in a large bell-jar with as much money as he wanted and see how long he lasted.

We've got 21st century technology and speed colliding head-on with 20th and 19th century institutions, rules and cultures.

The markets make a good servant but a bad master, and a worse religion.

I'm a practitioner of elegant frugality. I don't feel comfortable telling other people what to do, so I just try and lead by example.