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No technique is possible when men are free. … Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being. … The individual must be fashioned by techniques … in order to wipe out the blots his personal determination introduces into the perfect design of the organization.

— Jacques Ellul The Technological Society (1954)

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Technology

More quotes by Jacques Ellul

I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies man throughout his history.

Interview in Le Monde (1981)

Hate, hunger, and pride make better levers of propaganda than do love or impartiality.

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)

What seems to be one of the disasters of our time is that we all appear to agree that the nation-state is the norm.

Anarchy and Christianity [Anarchie et Christianisme (1988)

In a society such as ours, it is almost impossible for a person to be responsible.

The Betrayal by Technology (1993)

The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.

The Presence of the Kingdom (1948)

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We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

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Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Alfred North Whitehead An Introduction to Mathematics (1911)

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore

If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.

Pope Benedict XVI

Attribution

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