"A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind."
"In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage."
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Source: Values for Survival. Essay by Lewis Mumford, 1946.
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