Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford

Lewis Mumford Quotes

Historian

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenHumansIfsArtFormPeopleCitiesValuesExistenceDoe

Famous Lewis Mumford Quotes

“Nothing about his life is more strange to [man] or more unaccountable in purely mundane terms than the stirrings he finds in himself, usually fitful but sometimes overwhelming, to look beyond his animal existence and not be fully satisfied with its immediate substance. He lacks the complacency of the other animals: he is obsessed by pride and guilt, pride at being something more than a mere animal, built at falling short of the high aims he sets for himself.”

MenLooksSometimesLife IsFallTermAnimalExistenceStrangePrideBuiltAimGuiltMereSatisfiedSubstanceObsessedOverwhelmingComplacencyMundaneStirring
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image

“Integration proceeds by just the opposite route: a deliberate heightening of every organic function; a release of impulses from circumstances that irrationally thwarted them; richer and more complex patterns of activity; an esthetic heightening of anticipated realizations; a steady lengthening of the future; a faith in cosmic perspectives.”

LoveFaithPerspectiveCircumstancesActivityOppositesFunctionComplexesPatternsReleaseRealizationImpulseSteadyCosmicRoutesIntegrationDeliberate
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image

“Each one of us, as long as life stirs is us, may play a part in extricating ourselves from the power system by asserting our primacy as people in quiet acts of mental or physical withdrawal-in gestures of non-conformity, in abstentions, restrictions, inhibitions, which will liberate us from the domination of the pentagon of power.”

PeopleMayLongPlayQuietConformityGesturesDominationRestrictionWithdrawalPentagonNon ConformityInhibitionsPrimacyAbstention
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image

“Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword – as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks”

IfsLongDoneFormResponsibilityRiskEconomicSecuritySeriousConstantMereAcceptedWillingnessStabilityRomeImitationLackingHolding OnInvasionBarbariansDislocationImitation Of Life
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image

“By putting business before every other manifestation of life, our mechanical and financial civilization has forgotten the chief business of life: namely, growth, reproduction, development. It pays infinite attention to the incubator-and it forgets the egg!”

GrowthForgetPayAttentionDevelopmentCivilizationInfiniteForgottenFinancialChiefsManifestationEggsReproduction
Book:Findings and keepings: analects for an autobiography
Create image

“Do you want to know what I most regret about my youth? That I didn't dream more boldly and demand of myself more impossible things; for all one does in maturity is to carve in granite or porphyry the soap bubble one blew in youth! Oh to have dreamed harder!”

KnowsWantDoeDreamImpossibleYouthRegretDemandHarderMaturityBubblesSoapImpossible ThingsGraniteSoap Bubbles
Book:Findings and keepings: analects for an autobiography
Create image

“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”

WayIdeasWholeAmericaExistenceDiscoveryEuropeAncientSettlementBirthplaceBirth Place
Book:The golden day: a study in American literature and culture
Create image

“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”

MenWorldEndsHardLastsThreeCenturyPossibilityDisciplineMoonMachinesSurfacePracticalsCyclesBarrenComing To An End
Book:The Culture of Cities
Create image

“Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.”

MenTryingSpiritualFormEventsPersonalityOrdinaryPicksDepthChaosRevengeMeaningfulInterpretationSensationsMeaninglessGarbageStimulusSpontaneityMeaningful LifeNourishmentOrdinary ManDeviousVicariousSpiritual Nourishment
Author:Lewis Mumford
Create image