24 Quotes by Stuart Chase

People above the line of bare subsistence in this age, and in all earlier ages, do not use the surplus which society has given them primarily for useful purposes. They do not seek to expand their lives, to live more wisely, intelligently, understandingly, but to impress other people with the fact that they have a surplus.

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.

Common sense is what tells us the earth is flat.

Labor-saving devices, led by the computer, are encouraging more production and more unemployment. Automation may thus be classified as both asset and liability. It can eliminate a great deal of dull, monotonous labor, but if unrelieved idleness is the end result, the cure may be worse than the disease. The evidence strongly indicates that man is a working animal—in the sense of needing an activity that involves hand and brain, and that makes sense to him.

Democracy, as has been said of Christianity, has never really been tried.

I find it difficult to believe that words have no meaning in themselves, hard as I try. Habits of a lifetime are not lightly thrown aside.

Your liberty to swing your arms ends where my nose begins.

Individual talent is too sporadic and unpredictable to be allowed any important part in the organization society. Social systems which endure are built on the average person who can be trained to occupy any position adequately if not brilliantly.

The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services...America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin.