Quotes by Lewis Mumford

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. (Lewis Mumford)

Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act. (Lewis Mumford)

Humor is our way of defending ourselves from lifes absurdities by thinking absurdly about them. (Lewis Mumford)

It has not been for nothing that the word has remained mans principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all mans other tools would be worthless. (Lewis Mumford)

Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for training. (Lewis Mumford)

Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline. (Lewis Mumford)

New York is the perfect model of a city, not the model of a perfect city. (Lewis Mumford)

Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to lifes further development. (Lewis Mumford)

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence. (Lewis Mumford)

Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. (Lewis Mumford)