“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
E.F. Schumacher, "Small is Beautiful" (August 1973).
BTW this statement is often attributed to Albert Einstein, an online quotation magnet (like Abraham Lincoln, who famously warned us "Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it).
“Suspicion: The most powerful reason why some persons want to coerce conscience – for example, to force medical workers who object to abortions to participate in them anyway – is to have as much company as possible in their own bad conscience.”
J. Budziszewski "Underground Thomist" Feb. 25, 2019
“I wonder why pundits describe certain politicians as ideology-free, since that’s not possible. Everyone has some view of the world.”
J. Budziszewski "Underground Thomist" Feb. 25, 2019
“We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials of human relationship do not change.”
Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925
In my latest National Post column I say democracies for all their failings still beat tyranny hollow because we can ask people who want power what they’d do with it and why.
“Soon we shall know everything the 18th century didn’t know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us.”
Randall Jarrell, quoted on flyleaf of Neil Postman Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
“when people do not have a satisfactory narrative to generate a sense of purpose and continuity, a kind of psychic disorientation takes hood, followed by a frantic search for something to believe in or, probably worse, a resigned conclusion that there is nothing to find…. There is even one group… who, looking ahead, see a field of wonders encapsulated in the phrase ‘the information superhighway.’ They are information junkies, have no interest in narratives of the past, give little thought to the question of purpose…. Such people have no hesitation in speaking of building a bridge to the new century. But to the question ‘What will we carry across the bridge?’ they answer, ‘What else but high-definition TV, virtual reality, e-mail, the Internet, cellular phones, and all the rest that digital technology has produced?’ These, then, are the hollow men Eliot spoke of.”
Neil Postman Building a Bridge to the 18th Century