83 Quotes by E.F. Schumacher

An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in thesingle-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into thisworld, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while theenvironment in which it is placed is strictly limited.

The real problems of our planet are not economic or technical, they are philosophical. The philosophy of unbridled materialism is being challenged by events.

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.

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.

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.

To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar combinations of atoms is like saying that Shakespeare's Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters.

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.

It is therefore scientifically correct to say that 'natural selection has been proved to be an agent of evolutionary change' - we can, in fact, prove it by doing. But it is totally illegitimate to claim that the discovery of this mechanism - natural selection - proves that the cause of evolution 'was automatic with no room for divine guidance or design'.

People say: 'Let the facts speak for themselves'; they forget that the speech of facts is real only if it is heard and understood.