Skip to content

My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old social and industrial system, which taught them to view their natural prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy.

— Edward Bellamy Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

Another quote →

More quotes by Edward Bellamy

The nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is a close second.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

An American credit card is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

Manual labor meant association with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of people. There is no such class now.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

The greater efficiency which education gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short period for the time lost in acquiring it.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

All Edward Bellamy quotes →

Attribution

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