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
Blind, New, Desperate, New Baby
The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.
- Lewis Mumford
Art, City, Living, Convert
Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development.
- Lewis Mumford
Nothing, Needs, Dedicated, Unthinkable
Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.
- Lewis Mumford
Future, Past, Optimists, Pessimists
A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need bail.
- Lewis Mumford
Never, Needs, May, Bail
However far modern science and techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson; nothing is impossible.
- Lewis Mumford
Possibilities, However, At Least One
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.
- Lewis Mumford
Help, Brainy, Opposition, Kite
Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.
- Lewis Mumford
Fact, Private, Degradation, Interruption
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
Beauty, Succession, Spent, Perfection
In war, the army is not merely a pure consumer, but a negative producer.
- Lewis Mumford
War, Negative, Army, Consumer
Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century.
- Lewis Mumford
Goal, Line, Very, Parochial
Restore human legs as a means of travel. Pedestrians rely on food for fuel and need no special parking facilities.
- Lewis Mumford
Parking, Restore, Means, Facilities
Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.
- Lewis Mumford
Generation, Against, Fathers, Revolts
It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man's principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all man's other tools would be worthless.
- Lewis Mumford
Nothing, Other, Been, Meanings
The cities and mansions that people dream of are those in which they finally live.
- Lewis Mumford
Dream, Cities, Which, Mansions
To curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity.
- Lewis Mumford
Art, Denial, Machine, Curb
Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.
- Lewis Mumford
Funny, Concrete, National, Flower
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
Art, Practice, Failures, Essential
The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture.
- Lewis Mumford
Run, Long Run, Made, Contributions
Don't take the will for the deed; get the deed.
- Lewis Mumford
Will, Get, Take, Deed
Misery, mutilation, destruction, terror, starvation and death characterize the process of war and form a principal part of the product.
- Lewis Mumford
Process, Product, Terror, Starvation
One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
- Lewis Mumford
Take, Dangers, Functions, Account
The earth is the Lord's fullness thereof: this is no longer a hollow dictum of religion, but a directive for economic action toward human brotherhood.
- Lewis Mumford
Religion, Lord, Fullness, Hollow
Without fullness of experience, length of days is nothing. When fullness of life has been achieved, shortness of days is nothing. That is perhaps why the young have usually so little fear of death; they live by intensities that the elderly have forgotten.
- Lewis Mumford
Death, Young, Been, Shortness
The artist does not illustrate science (but) he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does.
- Lewis Mumford
Artist, Same, Does, Illustrate
The 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 Mumford
Government, Think, Handicap, Opinion
Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.
- Lewis Mumford
Car, Forget, Cities, Motor
War is the supreme drama of a completely mechanized society.
- Lewis Mumford
War, Society, Drama, Supreme
War vies with magic in its efforts to get something for nothing.
- Lewis Mumford
Magic, Nothing, Get, Efforts
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