The illusion that consumption - and its correlative, income - is desirable probably stems from too great preoccupation with what Knight calls "one-use goods," such as food and fuel, where the utilization and consumption of the good are tightly bound together in a single act or event. ... any economy in the consumption of fuel that enables us to maintain warmth or to generate power with lessened consumption again leaves us better off. ... there is no great value in consumption itself.
Kenneth E. BouldingPolitical conflict rests to a very large extent on a universal ignorance of consequences, as the people who are benefited by any particular act or policy are rarely those who struggled for it, and the people who are injured are rarely those who opposed it.
Kenneth E. BouldingThe love of God again makes us free, for it draws us to set a low value on those things wherein we are subject to others - our wealth, our position, our reputation, and our life - and to set a high value on those things which no man can take from us - our integrity, our righteousness, our love for all men, and our communion with God.
Kenneth E. BouldingThere is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise this God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.
Kenneth E. BouldingThe world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.
Kenneth E. BouldingThe troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it.
Kenneth E. Boulding