Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17
Context: No feats of heroism are needed to achieve the greatest and most important changes in the existence of humanity; neither the armament of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines, nor the arrangement of exhibitions, nor the organization of workmen's unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the perfection of aerial navigation; but a change in public opinion.
And to accomplish this change no exertions of the mind are needed, nor the refutation of anything in existence, nor the invention of any extraordinary novelty; it is only needful that we should not succumb to the erroneous, already defunct, public opinion of the past, which governments have induced artificially; it is only needful that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least that he should not say what he does not think.
“Sport in the sense of a mass-spectacle, with death to add to the underlying excitement, comes into existence when a population has been drilled and regimented and depressed to such an extent that it needs at least a vicarious participation in difficult feats of strength or skill or heroism in order to sustain its waning life-sense.”
Source: Technics and Civilization (1934), Ch. 6, sct. 11
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Lewis Mumford 75
American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology,… 1895–1990Related quotes
" Education http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Education" (1911) in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911. United States.
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The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, (1981)
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Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
Context: Machines have no political opinions, but they have profound political effects. They demand a strict regimentation of time, and, by abolishing the need for manual skill, have transformed the majority of the population from workers into laborers. There are, that is to say, fewer and fewer jobs which a man can find a pride and satisfaction in doing well, more and more which have no interest in themselves and can be valued only for the money they provide.
Boyatzis (2012) " The Resonant Team Leader http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/the_resonant_team_leader.html" at HBR Blog Network, April 13, 2012.
“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.”
Accepting Edward MacDowell Medal (September 8, 1979).