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Since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.

— E. F. Schumacher Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)

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More quotes by 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.

Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

It is doubly chimerical to build peace on economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict.

Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)

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

Small is Beautiful (1973)

Scientific and technological “solutions” which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived or how great their superficial attraction.

Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973)

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