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The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.

— Lewis Mumford The City in History (1961)

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More quotes by Lewis Mumford

Nothing endures except life: the capacity for birth, growth, and renewal.

The Culture of Cities (1938)

Nothing is permanent: certainly not the frozen images of barbarous power with which fascism now confronts us.

The Culture of Cities (1938)

The clock, not the steam-engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.

Technics and Civilization (1934)

In this situation the artist has a special task and duty: the task of reminding men of their humanity and the promise of their creativity.

In the Name of Sanity (1954)

Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet.

My Works and Days (1979)

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