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In Its Revolt Against Congestion And Sordor, A Space-hungry Generation Has, I Fear, Developed Eyes That Are Bigger Than Its Stomach.
-Lewis Mumford
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In Its Revolt Against

Lewis Mumford
...
In Its Revolt Against Congestion And Sordor, A Space-hungry Generation Has, I Fear, Developed Eyes That Are Bigger Than Its Stomach.

Understanding the Quote: "in its revolt against congestion and sordor, a space-hungry generation has, i..."

This quote by Lewis Mumford reflects deeply on the theme of eye. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Eye, Space, Generations, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Lewis Mumford interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumford is celebrated for insightful thoughts on eye and space. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Eye
Space
Generations
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Deliberately, On Every Historic Occasion, We Piously Fake Events For The Benefit Of Photographers, While The Actual Event Often Occurs In A Different Fashion; And We Have The Effrontery To Call These Artful Dress Rehearsals Authentic Historic Documents.
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War Is The Supreme Drama Of A Completely Mechanized Society.
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Unfortunately, Once An Economy Is Geared To Expansion, The Means Rapidly Turn Into An End And "the Going Becomes The Goal."
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If We Never Met Again In Our Lives I Should Feel That Somehow The Whole Adventure Of Existence Was Justified By My Having Met You.
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Above All We Need, Particularly As Children, The Reassuring Presence Of A Visible Community, An Intimate Group That Enfolds Us With Understanding And Love, And That Becomes An Object Of Our Spontaneous Loyalty, As A Criterion And Point Of Reference For The Rest Of The Human Race.
Loyalty
Children
Race
Before Modern Man Can Gain Control Over The Forces That Now Threaten His Very Existence, He Must Resume Possession Of Himself. This Sets The Chief Mission For The City Of The Future: That Of Creating A Visible Regional And Civic Structure, Designed To Make Man At Home With His Deeper Self And His Larger World, Attached To Images Of Human Nature And Love.
Home
Men
Creating
The Cycle Of The Machine Is Now Coming To An End. Man Has Learned Much In The Hard Discipline And The Shrewd, Unflinching Grasp Of Practical Possibilities That The Machine Has Provided In The Last Three Centuries: But We Can No More Continue To Live In The World Of The Machine Than We Could Live Successfully On The Barren Surface Of The Moon.
Moon
Men
Discipline
One's Worst Enormities Remain Within, And It Is Only One's Vulgar Commonplaces Of Error And Folly That Turn Into Murders And Suicides, Treasons, Infidelities, And Betrayals.
Suicide
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When Art Seems To Be Empty Of Meaning, As No Doubt Some Of The Abstract Painting Of Our Own Day Actually Does Seem, What The Painting Says, Indeed What The Artist Is Shrieking At The Top Of His Voice, Is That Life Has Become Empty Of All Rational Content And Coherence, And That, In Times Like These, Is Far From A Meaningless Statement.
Art
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Adding Highway Lanes To Deal With Traffic Congestion Is Like Loosening Your Belt To Cure Obesity.
Obesity
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In Its Revolt Against Congestion And Sordor, A Space-hungry Generation Has, I Fear, Developed Eyes That Are Bigger Than Its Stomach.
Eye
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Happiness, I Think, Lies On The Surface... When One Plunges Under The Surface All The Buoyant Things Disappear, And The Farther Down One Gets The More Cold And Dark It Seems: And The More Oppressive Space Feels.
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Nothing About His Life Is More Strange To [man] Or More Unaccountable In Purely Mundane Terms Than The Stirrings He Finds In Himself, Usually Fitful But Sometimes Overwhelming, To Look Beyond His Animal Existence And Not Be Fully Satisfied With Its Immediate Substance. He Lacks The Complacency Of The Other Animals: He Is Obsessed By Pride And Guilt, Pride At Being Something More Than A Mere Animal, Built At Falling Short Of The High Aims He Sets For Himself.
Fall
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For Most Americans, Progress Means Accepting What Is New Because It Is New, And Discarding What Is Old Because It Is Old.
Mean
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Today, The Degradation Of The Inner Life Is Symbolized By The Fact That The Only Place Sacred From Interruption Is The Private Toilet.
Life
Aggravation
Sacred
Integration Proceeds By Just The Opposite Route: A Deliberate Heightening Of Every Organic Function; A Release Of Impulses From Circumstances That Irrationally Thwarted Them; Richer And More Complex Patterns Of Activity; An Esthetic Heightening Of Anticipated Realizations; A Steady Lengthening Of The Future; A Faith In Cosmic Perspectives.
Love
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The Physical Lot Of Surviving Workers Had Notably Improved, With Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, And The New Health Services, While Their Children's School Education Was Assured By The Government-operated Schools: In Addition, They Had, For Intellectual Or Emotional Stimulus And Diversion, The Radio And The Television. But The Work Itself Was No Longer As Various, As Interesting, Or As Sustaining To The Personality.
Children
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I'm A Pessimist About Probabilities, I'm An Optimist About Possibilities.
Optimism
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Geneva Has The Sleepy Tidiness Of A Man Who Combs His Hair While Yet In His Pyjamas.
Men
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Only When Love Takes The Lead Will The Earth, And Life On Earth, Be Safe Again. And Not Until Then.
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When Vitality Runs High, Death Takes Men By Surprise. But If They Close Their Eyes To This Possibility, What They Gain In Peace They Lose In Sensibility And Significance.
Running
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Trend Is Not Destiny.
Destiny
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The Ultimate Gift Of Conscious Life Is A Sense Of The Mystery That Encompasses It.
Mystery
Consciousness
Life Is
Traditionalists Are Pessimists About The Future And Optimists About The Past.
Past
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Mechanical Instruments, Potentially A Vehicle Of Rational Human Purposes, Are Scarcely A Blessing When They Enable The Gossip Of The Village Idiot And The Deeds Of The Thug To Be Broadcast To A Million People Each Day.
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Order
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The Chief Enemy Of Peace Is The Spirit Of Unreason Itself: An Inability To Conceive Alternatives, An Unwillingness To Reconsider Old Prejudices, To Part With Ideological Obsessions, To Entertain New Ideas Or To Improve New Plans.
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War Vies With Magic In Its Efforts To Get Something For Nothing.
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A Society That Gives To One Class All The Opportunities For Leisure, And To Another All The Burdens Of Work, Dooms Both Classes To Spiritual Sterility.
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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.
Real
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Forget The Damned Motor Car And Build The Cities For Lovers And Friends.
Cities
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(the Processes Are) Doubly Ruinous: They Impoverish The Earth By Hastily Removing, For The Benefit Of A Few Generations, The Common Resources Which, Once Expended And Dissipated, Can Never Be Restored; And Second, In Its Technique, Its Habits, Its Processes, The Paleotechnic Period Is Equally Inimical To The Earth Considered As A Human Habitat, By Its Destruction Of The Beauty Of The Landscape, Its Ruining Of Streams, Its Pollution Of Drinking Water, Its Filling The Air With A Finely Divided Carboniferous Deposit, Which Chokes Both Life And Vegetation.
Drinking
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Whereas Freud Was For The Most Part Concerned With The Morbid Effects Of Unconscious Repression, Jung Was More Interested In The Manifestations Of Unconscious Expression, First In The Dream And Eventually In All The More Orderly Products Of Religion And Art And Morals.
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A Multitude Of Uniform, Unidentifiable Houses, Lined Up Inflexibly, At Uniform Distances, On Uniform Roads, In A Treeless Communal Waste, Inhabited By People Of The Same Class, The Same Income, The Same Age Group, Witnessing The Same Television Performances, Eating The Same Tasteless Prefabricated Foods, From The Same Freezers, Conforming In Every Outward And Inward Respect To The Common Mold.
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The City Is A Fact In Nature, Like A Cave, A Run Of Mackerel Or An Ant-heap. But It Is Also A Conscious Work Of Art, And It Holds Within Its Communal Framework Many Simpler And More Personal Forms Of Art. Mind Takes Form In The City; And In Turn, Urban Forms Condition Mind.
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Witty
Flower
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Novelty
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Perfect
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Two
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Architecture Is Either The Prophecy Of An Unformed Society Or The Tomb Of A Finished One.
Architecture
Prophecy
Tombs
Henceforward, I Shout To The Heavens, I Shall Deliver No More Lectures On Behalf Of Good Causes: I Am The Good Cause That Denies The Need For Such Lectures. Avaunt, Importuning World! Back To My Cell.
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Needs
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Safety Razors Make It Hard To Grow Beards In America: America Would Be A Better Place If There Were A Few Bearded, Savage, Terrible Old Men.
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America
Safety
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He Who Touches The Soil Of Manhattan And The Pavement Of New York, Touches, Whenever He Knows Or Not, Walt Whitman.
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Real
Blood
Ink
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Men
Self
Goal
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Running
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Art
Mean
Order
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Expression
Organization
Giving
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Positive
Science
Technology
The Wonder Is Not That So Much Cacophony Appears In Our Actual Individual Lives, But That There Is Any Appearance Of Harmony And Progression.
Progress
Cacophony
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Every Work Of Art Is An Abstraction From Time; It Denies The Reality Of Change And Decay And Death.
Art
Reality
Decay
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Moving
Opportunity
Goal
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Life
Elderly
Littles
The Self Holds Both A Hell And A Heaven.
Self
Heaven
Hell
What Plethora Of Material Goods Can Possibly Atone For A Waking Life So Humanly Belittling, If Not Degrading, As The Push-button Tasks Left To Human Performers?
Buttons
Waking Life
Tasks
The Cities And Mansions That People Dream Of Are Those In Which They Finally Live.
Inspirational
Life
Dream
I Would Die Happy If I Knew That On My Tombstone Could Be Written These Words, "this Man Was An Absolute Fool. None Of The Disastrous Things That He Reluctantly Predicted Ever Came To Pass!"
Tombstone
Men
Personality
The Right To Have Access To Every Building In The City By Private Motorcar In An Age When Everyone Possesses Such A Vehicle Is Actually The Right To Destroy The City.
Cities
Age
Building
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Goal
Progress
Limits
The Mind Reproduces Itself By Transmitting Its Symbols To Other Intermediaries, Human And Mechanical, Than The Particular Brain That First Assembled Them.
Brain
Mind
Firsts
Everyone Aimed At Security: No One Accepted Responsibility. What Was Plainly Lacking, Long Before The Barbarian Invasions Had Done Their Work, Long Before Economic Dislocations Became Serious, Was Inner Go. Rome’s Life Was Now An Imitation Of Life: A Mere Holding On. Security Was The Watchword – As If Life Knew Any Other Stability Than Through Constant Change, Or Any Form Of Security Except Through A Constant Willingness To Take Risks
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Long
Each Person Is A Temporary Focus Of Forces, Vitalities, And Values That Carry Back To An Immemorial Past And That Reach Forward Into An Unthinkable Future.
Past
Thought Provoking
Focus
The Humanities And Science Are Not In Inherent Conflict But Have Become Separated In The Twentieth Century. Now Their Essential Unity Must Be Re-emphasized, So That Twentieth-century Multiplicity May Become Twentieth-century Unity.
Humanity
Unity
Essentials
By Fashion And Built-in Obsolescence The Economies Of Machine Production, Instead Of Producing Leisure And Durable Wealth, Are Duly Cancelled Out By The Mandatory Consumption On An Even Larger Scale.
Fashion
Machines
Leisure
Iron And Coal Dominated Everywhere, From Grey To Black: The Black Boots, The Black Stove-pipe Hat, The Black Coach Or Carriage, The Black Iron Frame Of The Hearth, The Black Cooking Pots And Pans And Stoves. Was It A Mourning? Was It Protective Coloration? Was It Mere Depression Of The Senses? No Matter What The Original Color Of The Paleotechnic Milieu Might Be It Was Soon Reduced By Reason Of The Soot And Cinders That Accompanied Its Activities, To Its Characteristic Tones, Grey, Dirty-brown, Black.
Dirty
Heart
Science
Moment To Moment, It Turns Out, Is Not God's Conception, Or Nature's. It Is Man Conversing With Himself About And Through A Piece Of Machinery He Created."we Effectively Became "time-keepers, And Then Time-savers, And Now Time-servers" With The Invention Of The Clock."
Men
Pieces
Clock
Each Religion Is A Brave Guess At The Authorship Of Hamlet. Yet, As Far As The Play Goes, Does It Make Any Difference Whether Shakespeare Or Bacon Wrote It? Would It Make Any Difference To The Actors If Their Parts Happened Out Of Nothingness, If They Found Themselves Acting On The Stage Because Of Some Gross And Unpardonable Accident? Would It Make Any Difference If The Playwright Gave Them The Lines Or Whether They Composed Them Themselves, So Long As The Lines Were Properly Spoken? Would It Make Any Difference To The Characters If 'a Midsummer Night's Dream' Was Really A Dream?
God
Dream
Character
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Photography
Quilts
Crazy
Growth And Self-transformation Cannot Be Delegated.
Self
Growth
Transformation
Faith In The Creative Process, In The Dynamics Of Emergence, In The Values And Purposes That Transcend Past Achievements And Past Forms, Is The Precondition Of All Further Growth.
Past
Achievement
Creative
Nothing Endures Except Life: The Capacity For Birth, Growth, And Renewal.
Growth
Birth
Immortality
Every Generation Revolts Against Its Fathers And Makes Friends With Its Grandfathers.
Family
Father
Grandmother
Order And Creativity Are Complementary.
Creativity
Order
Chaos
Nothing Is Unthinkable, Nothing Impossible To The Balanced Person, Provided It Comes Out Of The Needs Of Life And Is Dedicated To Life's Further Development.
Needs
Development
Impossible
Unable To Create A Meaningful Life For Itself, The Personality Takes Its Own Revenge: From The Lower Depths Comes A Regressive Form Of Spontaneity: Raw Animality Forms A Counterpoise To The Meaningless Stimuli And The Vicarious Life To Which The Ordinary Man Is Conditioned. Getting Spiritual Nourishment From This Chaos Of Events, Sensations, And Devious Interpretations Is The Equivalent Of Trying To Pick Through A Garbage Pile For Food.
Meaningful
Spiritual
Revenge
The Philosophers Of Industrialism, From Bacon To Bentham, From Smith To Marx, Insisted That The Improvement Of Man's Condition Was The Highest Requirement Of Morality. But In What Did The Improvement Consist? The Answer Seemed So Obvious To Them That They Did Not Bother To Justify It: The Expansion And Fulfillment Of The Material Wants Of Man, And The Spread Of These Benefits, From The Few Who Had Once Preempted Them, To The Many Who Had So Long Lived On The Scraps Dives Had Thrown Into The Gutter.
Men
Long
Expansion
Sport In The Sense Of A Mass-spectacle, With Death To Add To The Underlying Excitement, Comes Into Existence When A Population Has Been Drilled And Regimented And Depressed To Such An Extent That It Needs At Least A Vicarious Participation In Difficult Feats Of Strength Or Skill Or Heroism In Order To Sustain Its Waning Life-sense.
Sports
Order
Skills
The Chief Function Of The City Is To Convert Power Into Form, Energy Into Culture, Dead Matter Into The Living Symbols Of Art, Biological Reproduction Into Social Creativity.
Art
Creativity
Cities
The Way People In Democracies Think Of The Government As Something Different From Themselves Is A Real Handicap. And, Of Course, Sometimes The Government Confirms Their Opinion.
Real
Thinking
Government
A Certain Amount Of Opposition Is A Great Help To A Man. Kites Rise Against, Not With, The Wind.
Inspirational
Motivational
Courage
What Was Once Called The Objective World Is A Sort Of Rorschach Ink Blot, Into Which Each Culture, Each System Of Science And Religion, Each Type Of Personality, Reads A Meaning Only Remotely Derived From The Shape And Color Of The Blot Itself
Color
Goal
Personality
It Has Not Been For Nothing That The Word Has Remained Man's Principal Toy And Tool: Without The Meanings And Values It Sustains, All Man's Other Tools Would Be Worthless.
Writing
Men
Toys
We Have Created An Industrial Order Geared To Automatism, Where Feeble-mindedness, Native Or Acquired, Is Necessary For Docile Productivity In The Factory; And Where A Pervasive Neurosis Is The Final Gift Of The Meaningless Life That Issues Forth At The Other End.
Order
Issues
Finals
The Very People Who Shudder Over The Cruelty Of The Hunter Are Apt To Forget That Slaughter, In The Grimmest Sense Of The Word, Is A Process They Entrust Daily To The Butcher; And That Unlike The Game Of The Forests, Even The Dumbest Creatures Of The Slaughterhouse Know What Is In Store For Them.
Animal
Games
People
The Artist Does Not Illustrate Science; ... [but] He Frequently Responds To The Same Interests That A Scientist Does, And Expresses By A Visual Synthesis What The Scientist Converts Into Analytical Formulae Or Experimental Demonstrations.
Science
Artist
Expression
The Fujiyama Of Architecture?at Once A Lofty Mountain And A National Shrine.
Mountain
Shrines
Architecture
By Putting Business Before Every Other Manifestation Of Life, Our Mechanical And Financial Civilization Has Forgotten The Chief Business Of Life: Namely, Growth, Reproduction, Development. It Pays Infinite Attention To The Incubator-and It Forgets The Egg!
Civilization
Eggs
Growth
The Earth Is The Lord's Fullness Thereof: This Is No Longer A Hollow Dictum Of Religion, But A Directive For Economic Action Toward Human Brotherhood.
Humanity
Brotherhood
Earth
A Day Spent Without The Sight Or Sound Of Beauty, The Contemplation Of Mystery, Or The Search Of Truth Or Perfection Is A Poverty-stricken Day; And A Succession Of Such Days Is Fatal To Human Life.
Beauty
Truth
Sight
Unfortunately, Once An Economy Is Geared To Expansion, The Means Rapidly Turn Into An End And "the Going Becomes The Goal." Even More Unfortunately, The Industries That Are Favored By Such Expansion Must, To Maintain Their Output, Be Devoted To Goods That Are Readily Consumable Either By Their Nature, Or Because They Are So Shoddily Fabricated That They Must Soon Be Replaced. By Fashion And Built-in Obsolescence The Economies Of Machine Production, Instead Of Producing Leisure And Durable Wealth, Are Duly Cancelled Out By The Mandatory Consumption On An Even Larger Scale.
Fashion
Mean
Goal
Life Is An Art We Are Required To Practice Without Preparation, A Score That We Play At Sight Even Before We Have Mastered Our Instruments.
Art
Happy Life
Sight
To Curb The Machine And Limit Art To Handicraft Is A Denial Of Opportunity.
Art
Opportunity
Machines
Restore Human Legs As A Means Of Travel. Pedestrians Rely On Food For Fuel And Need No Special Parking Facilities.
Travel
Mean
Cooking
Life Is The Only Art That We Are Required To Practice Without Preparation, And Without Being Allowed The Preliminary Trials, The Failures And Botches, That Are Essential For The Training...
Life
Art
Practice
Every New Baby Is A Blind Desperate Vote For Survival: People Who Find Themselves Unable To Register An Effective Political Protest Against Extermination Do So By A Biological Act.
Mom
Baby
People
While A Great Many Other Ideas And Measures Are Of Prime Importance For The Good Life Of The Community, That Which Concerns Its Architectural Expression Is The Notion Of The Community As Limited In Numbers, And In Area... To Express These Relations Clearly, To Embody Them In Buildings And Roads And Gardens In Which Each Individual Structure Will Be Subordinated To The Whole - This Is The End Of Community Planning.
Good Life
Garden
Expression
Chaos, If It Does Not Harden Into A Pattern Of Disorder, May Be More Fruitful Than A Regularity Too Easily Accepted And A Success Too Easily Achieved.
Doe
May
Patterns
Utopias Rest On The Fallacy That Perfection Is A Legitimate Goal Of Human Existence.
Goal
Perfection
Utopia
Every Transformation Of Humanity Has Rested Upon Deep Stirrings And Intuitions, Whose Rationalized Expression Takes The Form Of A New Picture Of The Cosmos And The Nature Of The Human.
Expression
Humanity
Intuition
Genuine [economic] Value Lies In The Power To Sustain Or Enrich Life
Lying
Economic Value
Genuine
The Fact That Order And Creativity Are Complementary Has Been Basic To Man's Cultural Development; For He Has To Internalize Order To Be Able To Give External Form To His Creativity.
Creativity
Men
Order
One Of The Functions Of Intelligence Is To Take Account Of The Dangers That Come From Trusting Solely To The Intelligence.
Ironic
Intelligence
Irony
The Last Step In Parental Love Involves The Release Of The Beloved; The Willing Cutting Of The Cord That Would Otherwise Keep The Child In A State Of Emotional Dependence.
Children
Inspiration
Cutting
A Man Of Courage Never Needs Weapons, But He May Need Bail.
Courage
Men
Needs
If Mankind Is To Escape Its Programmed Self-extinction The God Who Saves Us Will Not Descend From The Machine: He Will Rise Up Again In The Human Soul.
Self
Soul
Machines
Virtue Is Not A Chemical Product...it Is A Historic Product, Like Language And Literature; And This Means That If We Cease To Care About It, Cease To Cultivate It, Cease To Transmit Its Funded Values, A Large Part Of It Will Become Meaningless, Like A Dead Language To Which We Have Lost The Key.
Mean
Keys
Literature
When Cities Were First Founded, An Old Egyptian Scribe Tells Us, The Mission Of The Founder Was To 'put Gods In Their Shrines.' The Task Of The Coming City Is Not Essentially Different: Its Mission Is To Put The Highest Concerns Of Man At The Center Of All His Activities.
Men
Cities
Different
The Artist Has A Special Task And Duty... Reminding People Of Their Humanity And The Promise Of Their Creativity.
Creativity
Artist
Carpe Diem
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