Architecture is either the prophecy of an unformed society or the tomb of a finished one.
LEWIS MUMFORDArchitecture is either the prophecy of an unformed society or the tomb of a finished one.
LEWIS MUMFORDFor most Americans, progress means accepting what is new because it is new, and discarding what is old because it is old.
LEWIS MUMFORDIn war, the army is not merely a pure consumer, but a negative producer.
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 MUMFORDEach person is a temporary focus of forces, vitalities, and values that carry back to an immemorial past and that reach forward into an unthinkable future.
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 MUMFORDGrowth and self-transformation cannot be delegated.
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 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 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 MUMFORDEvery work of art is an abstraction from time; it denies the reality of change and decay and death.
LEWIS MUMFORDOur national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.
LEWIS MUMFORDHumor is our way of defending ourselves from life’s absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.
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 MUMFORDTo curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity.
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 MUMFORD