151 Quotes by Jacques Ellul

First our desire for money is never satisfied. Our pursuit of money is infinite. We can never say: this is enough.... There is never any limit, since in order to set a limit or a stopping point, one would need self-control and wisdom. And if one had these at the outset, he would not have had such a passion for money.

Technical civilization has made the great error in not suppressing death, the only human reality still intact.

La technique se développe de façon indépendante, en dehors de tout contrôle humain.

The more you add to what you have, the less you are. Accumulating more, concentrating all your effort in the quest for things you can have, means losing your being in the process.... Being involves something different than the quest for having. Adding to what you have means losing your being.

No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.

Il ne peut pas y avoir un développement infini dans un univers fini.

Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends. Any other assessment of the situation is mere idealism.

[Politics] is always a means of conquering others and exercising power over them.

Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.