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The optimal scale of the economy is smaller, the greater (a) the degree of complementarity between natural and man-made capital; (b) our desire for direct experience of nature; and (c) our estimate of both the intrinsic and instrumental value of other species. The smaller the optimal scale of the economy, the sooner its physical growth becomes uneconomic.

— Herman E. Daly

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More quotes by Herman E. Daly

The cosmology of scientific materialism … considers the cosmos an absurd accident, and life within it to be no more than another accident.

There is something fundamentally wrong with treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation.

Current economic growth has uncoupled itself from the world and has become irrelevant. Worse, it has become a blind guide.

Organisms cannot survive in a medium consisting of their own final outputs. Neither can economies.

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.

to Herman Daly in: Tristan Clark (2007)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Herman E. Daly (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.