Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford, KBEwas an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth19 October 1895
CountryUnited States of America
abyss boredom classes devices earlier inventing labor man modern privileged success
By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed
dream cities people
The cities and mansions that people dream of are those in which they finally live.
funny witty flower
Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.
life art practice
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.
children cutting parenting
The last step in parental love involves the release of the beloved; the willing cutting of the cord that would otherwise keep the child in a state of emotional dependence.
intelligence ironic irony
One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
blessing thug gossip
Mechanical instruments, potentially a vehicle of rational human purposes, are scarcely a blessing when they enable the gossip of the village idiot and the deeds of the thug to be broadcast to a million people each day.
mountain shrines architecture
The Fujiyama of Architecture?at once a lofty mountain and a national shrine.
responsibility rome long
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
meaningful spiritual revenge
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.
spiritual opportunity class
A Society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure and to another all the burdens of work condemns both classes to spiritual sterility.
play long people
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.
children school emotional
The physical lot of surviving workers had notably improved, with unemployment insurance, social security, and the new health services, while their children's school education was assured by the government-operated schools: in addition, they had, for intellectual or emotional stimulus and diversion, the radio and the television. But the work itself was no longer as various, as interesting, or as sustaining to the personality...
adventure justified should
If we never met again in our lives I should feel that somehow the whole adventure of existence was justified by my having met you.