E. F. Schumacher

I cannot predict the wind but I can have my sail ready.

— E. F. Schumacher

No one is really working for peace unless he is working primarily for the restoration of wisdom.

— E. F. Schumacher

There can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.

— E. F. Schumacher

Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.

— E. F. Schumacher

It is amazing how much theory we can do without when work actually begins.

— E. F. Schumacher

The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product.

— E. F. Schumacher

Many people love in themselves what they hate in others

— E. F. Schumacher

Not mass production but production by the masses.

— E. F. Schumacher

The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.

— E. F. Schumacher

An entirely new system of thought is needed, a system based on attention to people, and not primarily attention to goods. . . .

— E. F. Schumacher

The technology of mass production is inherently violent, ecologically damaging, self-defeating in terms of non-renewable resources, and stultifying for the human person.

— E. F. Schumacher

The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little.

— E. F. Schumacher

Anyone who thinks consumption can expand forever on a finite planet is either insane or an economist.

— E. F. Schumacher

We think work with the brain is more worthy than work with the hands. Nobody who thinks with his hands could ever…

— E. F. Schumacher

Study how a society uses its land, and you can come to pretty reliable conclusions as to what its future will be.

— E. F. Schumacher

Modern economic thinking...is peculiarly unable to consider the long term and to appreciate man's dependence on the natural world.

— E. F. Schumacher

We must do what we conceive to be the right thing, and not bother our heads or burden our souls with whether…

— E. F. Schumacher

Our intentions tend to be much more real to us than our actions, and this can lead to a great deal of…

— E. F. Schumacher

Scientific and technological "solutions" which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter…

— E. F. Schumacher

Even bigger machines, entailing even bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress:…

— E. F. Schumacher

By means of trees, wildlife could be conserved, pollution decreased, and the beauty of our landscapes enhanced. This is the way, or…

— E. F. Schumacher

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill…

— E. F. Schumacher

There are three things healthy people most need to do - to be creatively productive, to render service, and to act in…

— E. F. Schumacher

From a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people…

— E. F. Schumacher

I started by saying that one of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production…

— E. F. Schumacher

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill…

— E. F. Schumacher

That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression,…

— E. F. Schumacher

No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe…

— E. F. Schumacher

The truly educated man is not a man who knows a bit of everything, not even the man who knows all the…

— E. F. Schumacher

...liberation from constraints that operate at the level of ordinary humanity---limits imposed by space and time, by the needs of the body,…

— E. F. Schumacher

An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.

— E. F. Schumacher

There is no economic problem and, in a sense, there never has been.

— E. F. Schumacher

Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.

— E. F. Schumacher

Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.

— E. F. Schumacher

Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.

— E. F. Schumacher

The fundamental task is to achieve smallness within large organisation.

— E. F. Schumacher

Our task is to look at the world, and see it whole.

— E. F. Schumacher

True art is the intermediary between man's ordinary nature and his higher potentialities.

— E. F. Schumacher

If, however, economic ambitions are good servants, they are bad masters

— E. F. Schumacher

The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure.

— E. F. Schumacher