In war, the army is not merely a pure consumer, but a negative producer.
LEWIS MUMFORDIn war, the army is not merely a pure consumer, but a negative producer.
LEWIS MUMFORDArchitecture is either the prophecy of an unformed society or the tomb of a finished one.
LEWIS MUMFORDThe way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.
LEWIS MUMFORDSafety razors make it hard to grow beards in America: America would be a better place if there were a few bearded, savage, terrible old men.
LEWIS MUMFORDThe chief enemy of peace is the spirit of unreason itself: an inability to conceive alternatives, an unwillingness to reconsider old prejudices, to part with ideological obsessions, to entertain new ideas or to improve new plans.
LEWIS MUMFORDEvery 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 MUMFORDThe artist does not illustrate science; … [but] he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does, and expresses by a visual synthesis what the scientist converts into analytical formulae or experimental demonstrations.
LEWIS MUMFORDIf we never met again in our lives I should feel that somehow the whole adventure of existence was justified by my having met you.
LEWIS MUMFORDThe fact that order and creativity are complementary has been basic to man’s cultural development; for he has to internalize order to be able to give external form to his creativity.
LEWIS MUMFORDHenceforward, I shout to the heavens, I shall deliver no more lectures on behalf of good causes: I am the good cause that denies the need for such lectures. Avaunt, importuning world! Back to my cell.
LEWIS MUMFORDFor most Americans, progress means accepting what is new because it is new, and discarding what is old because it is old.
LEWIS MUMFORDNew York is the perfect model of a city, not the model of a perfect city.
LEWIS MUMFORDThe 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.
LEWIS MUMFORDThe self holds both a hell and a heaven.
LEWIS MUMFORDEvery work of art is an abstraction from time; it denies the reality of change and decay and death.
LEWIS MUMFORDToday, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.
LEWIS MUMFORD