List of E. F. Schumacher Quotes

After All, For Mankind As A Whole There Are No Exports. We Did Not Start Developing By Obtaining Foreign Exchange From Mars Or The Moon. Mankind Is A Closed Society.

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.

Few Can Contemplate Without A Sense Of Exhilaration The Splendid Achievements Of Practical Energy And Technical Skill, Which, From The Latter Part Of The Seventeenth Century, Were Transforming The Face Of Material Civilization, And Of Which England Was The Daring, If Not Too Scrupulous, Pioneer.

If, However, Economic Ambitions Are Good Servants, They Are Bad Masters

The Heart Of The Matter, As I See It, Is The Stark Fact That World Poverty Is Primarily A Problem Of Two Million Villages, And Thus A Problem Of Two Thousand Million Villagers.

True Art Is The Intermediary Between Man's Ordinary Nature And His Higher Potentialities.

Why Precisely Do We Want To Change Land Ownership? The Answer Seems To Me To Be Quite Clear: To Inhibit Land Speculation, To Inhibit The Private Exploitation Of The Scarcity-value Of Land, To Inhibit As We Might Say The Cornering Of Land.

It Has Been Universally Recognized, In All Authentic Teachings Of Mankind, That Every Being Born Into This World Has To Work, Not Merely To Keep Himself Alive, But To Strive Towards Perfection.

The Most Striking Thing About Modern Industry Is That It Requires So Much And Accomplishes So Little.

Modern Industry Seems To Be Inefficient To A Degree That Surpasses One's Enduring Powers Of Imagination. Its Inefficiency Therefore Remains Unnoticed.

The Printing Press Is Either The Greatest Blessing Or The Greatest Curse Of Modern Times, Sometimes One Forgets Which It Is.

Many Have No Desire To Be In It, Because Their Work Does Not Interest Them, Providing Them With Neither Challenge Nor Satisfaction, And Has No Other Merit In Their Eyes Than That It Leads To A Pay-packet At The End Of The Week.