E. F. Schumacher
E. F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacherwas an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became popularised in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s. He is best known for his critique of Western economies and his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth16 August 1911
E. F. Schumacher quotes about
practice theory small-is-beautiful
An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.
sacred small-is-beautiful
There can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.
doubt growth use
At present, there can be little doubt that the whole of mankind is in mortal danger, not because we are short of scientific and technological know-how, but because we tend to use it destructively, without wisdom. More education can help us only if produces more wisdom.
worthwhile-things years government
Economic policies absorb almost the entire attention of government, and at the same time become ever more impotent. The simplest things, which only fifty years ago one could do without difficulty, cannot get done any more. The richer a society, the more impossible it become to do worthwhile things without immediate payoff.
errors intellectual environmental
I started by saying that one of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. This illusion, I suggested, is mainly due to our inability to recognize that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which is has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income.
looks world tasks
Our task is to look at the world, and see it whole.
littles rich enough
There are poor societies which have too little; but where is the rich society that says: 'Halt! We have enough'? There is none.
life attitude doe
An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.
wind sail ready
I cannot predict the wind but I can have my sail ready.
attitude greatness eagles
Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.
funny-work might income
It might be said that it is the ideal of the employer to have production without employees and the ideal of the employee is to have income without work.
soulmate knowledge giving
Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
sacred explanation
Anything that we can destroy but are unable to make is, in a sense sacred, and all our 'explanations' of it do not really explain anything.
nature men battle
Modern man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side