Great Throughts Treasury

"I believe, therefore, that the best way to make contact with the essential problem is by speaking of technology: economic development in poverty-stricken areas can be fruitful only on the basis of what I have called "intermediate technology." In the end, intermediate technology will be "labor-intensive" and will lend itself to the use of small-scale establishments" - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"In this respect, the idea of private enterprise fits exactly into the idea of The Market, which, in an earlier chapter, I called "the institutionalization of individualism and non-responsibility."" - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"It takes a good deal of courage to say "no" to the fashions and fascinations of the age and to question the presuppositions of a civilization which appears destined to conquer the whole world; the requisite strength can be derived only from deep convictions. If it were derived from nothing more than fear of the future, it would be likely to disappear at the decisive moment." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"Methods of production, standards of consumption, criteria of success or failure, systems of values, and behavior patterns establish themselves in poor countries which, being (doubtfully) appropriate only to conditions of affluence already achieved, fix the poor countries ever more inescapably in a condition of utter dependence on the rich." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"Now that man has acquired the physical means of self-obliteration, the question of peace obviously looms larger than ever before in human history. And how could peace be built without some assurance of permanence with regard to our economic life?" - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"On the basis of experience and conscious thought small ideas may easily be dislodged, but when it comes to bigger, more universal or more subtle ideas it may not be so easy to change them. Indeed, it is often difficult to become aware of them, as they are the instruments and not the results of our thinking—just as you can see what is outside you, but cannot easily see that with which you see, the eye itself." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The common criterion of success, namely the growth of GNP, is utterly misleading and, in fact, must of necessity lead to phenomena which can only be described as neo-colonialism." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace. Every increase in needs tends to increase one's dependence on outside forces over which one cannot have control, and therefore increases existential fear. Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The effort needed to sustain a way of life which seeks to attain the optimal pattern of consumption is likely to be much smaller than the effort needed to sustain a drive for maximum consumption." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The reign of quantity celebrates its greatest triumphs in "the Market." Everything is equated with everything else. To equate things means to give them a price and thus to make them exchangeable. To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life, because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"There is nothing in the experience of the last twenty-five years to suggest that modern technology, as we know it, can really help us to alleviate world poverty, not to mention the problem of unemployment…we had better fact the question of technology - what does it do and that should it do? Can we develop a technology which really helps us to solve our problems – a technology with a human face?" - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"What is to take the place of the soul and life-destroying metaphysics inherited from the nineteenth century? The task of our generation, I have no doubt, is one of metaphysical reconstruction… Our task – and the task of all education – is to understand the present world, the world in which we live and make our choices." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"When we move from small-scale to medium-scale, the connection between ownership and work already becomes attenuated; private enterprise tends to become impersonal and also a significant social factor in the locality; it may even assume more than local significance." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"Most people have put anything that earns money in the category of the things that I HAVE to do. And that is why the money often comes so hard." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"There is no better way to earn money than to do the things that you love to do. Money can flow into your experience through endless avenues. It is not the choice of the craft that limits the money that flows - but only your attitude toward money." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and private space is denied, fusion replaces intimacy and possession co-opts love. It is also the kiss of death for sex. Deprived of enigma, intimacy becomes cruel when it excludes any possibility of discovery. Where there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek." - Esther Perel

"One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass." - Etty Hillesum, formally Ester "Etty" Hillesum

"The mistakes of others are good teachers." - Estonian Proverbs

"There is as much difference between the stage and the film as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both." - Ethel Barrymore

"Great men have big hearts." - Ethiopian Proverbs

"We do not need to project out own ideas into the economy of nature; they belong there in their own right. Our own ideas are in the economy of nature because we ourselves are in it. Any and every one of the things which a man does intelligently is done with a purpose and to a certain end which is the final cause why he does itÂ… Through man, who is part and parcel of nature, purposiveness most certainly is part and parcel of nature. In what sense is it arbitrary, knowing from within that where there is organization there always is a purpose, to conclude that there is a purpose wherever there is organization?" - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

"The sensations therefore, and the operations of the mind, are the materials of all our knowledge; materials which our reflection employs, when by compounding pounding it seeks for the relations which they contain." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write more entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page." - Eudora Welty

"The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought." - Eudora Welty

"In my eyes, concepts of theology have only as much value as they are able to interpret experience. It seems to me that we have long reached the point where we theologians only talk to ourselves and debate with our own history of concepts." - Eugen Drewermann

"But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing." - Eugene Peterson

"Forgiveness is the last word. I take no interest in eliminating the tension between justice and forgiveness by taking justice off the table." - Eugene Peterson

"If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. There must be an organic unity between past and future lived in the present." - Eugene Peterson

"Instead of asking, “Why does this happen Why do I feel left in the lurch” we can ask “How does it happen that there are people who sing with such confidence, ‘God’s strong name is our help’”" - Eugene Peterson

"Instead, why don't you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so - you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn't have to say anything wise. You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. After three or four such meetings, write to me what has transpired, and we'll discuss it further." - Eugene Peterson

"It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest." - Eugene Peterson

"ItÂ’s a wonderful formula for getting to heaven the quickest and easiest way. And virtually foolproof. There is no time to backslide, no temptations to bother with, no doubts to wrestle with, no spouse to have to honor, no kids to put up with, no enemies to love, no more sorrow, no more tears. Instant eternity." - Eugene Peterson

"My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors." - Eugene Peterson

"The Bible is not a script for a funeral service, but it is the record of God always bringing life where we expected to find death. Everywhere it is the story of resurrection." - Eugene Peterson

"The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility." - Eugene Peterson

"Theology is about God, and God is Spirit … we have accumulated a lot of experience in the Christian community of persons treating theology as a subject in which God is studied in the ways we are taught to study in our schools—acquiring information that we can use, or satisfying our curiosity, or obtaining qualifications for a job or profession. There are, in fact, a lot of people within and outside formal religious settings who talk and write a lot about spirituality, things of the spirit or the soul or higher things, but are not interested in God. There is a wonderful line in T. H. White’s novel of King Arthur (The Once and Future King), in which Guinevere in her old age becomes the abbess of a convent: ‘she was a wonderful theologian but she wasn’t interested in God.’ It happens." - Eugene Peterson

"There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations called holiness." - Eugene Peterson

"Understanding that life is a journey must take into account the pilgrimages of the Jews. They refreshed their memories of God’s saving ways at the Feast of Passover in the spring; they renewed their commitments as God’s covenantal people at the Feast of the Pentecost in early summer; they responded as a blessed community to the best that God had for them at the Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn. They were a redeemed people, a commanded people, and a blessed people. Every pilgrimage reminded them of their journey with God – past, present, and future." - Eugene Peterson

"Wait and watch are the two words given to us in our suffering. The words are connected with the image of watchmen waiting through the night for the dawn. There is something you can do, or more exactly, there is someone you can be: be a watchman." - Eugene Peterson

"We live in an “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship." - Eugene Peterson

"I am so far from being a pessimist... on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"I love every bone in their heads." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"Where the rainbows play in the flying spray," - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"Let us pick up again these lost strands and weave them again into the fabric of America, sort out the music from the sounds and again respond to the trumpet and the steady drum." - Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

"There is only one thing to do — take it to the country!" - Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

"A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal