These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

In the world of minor lunacy the behaviour of both the utterly rational and the totally insane seems equally odd.

It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast - even the English can't do it.

No society ever seems to have succumbed to boredom. Man has developed an obvious capacity for surviving the pompous reiteration of the commonplace.

It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.

If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to decrease waste, to make better use of stocks available, and to develop substitutes. But what about the appetite itself? The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialised countries