Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Harper & Row, 1973)

Their wordsMan is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.

Their wordsThe economics of giantism and automation is a left-over of nineteenth-century conditions and nineteenth-century thinking and it is totally incapable of solving any of the real problems of today.

Their wordsEducation which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training or indulgence.

Their wordsThe substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product.

Their wordsit does not require more than a simple act of insight to realise that infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.

Their wordsAn attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth — in short, materialism — does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.

Their wordsNature always, so to speak, knows where and when to stop.

Their wordsStrange to say, technology, although of course the product of man, tends to develop by its own laws and principles, and these are very different from those of human nature or of living nature in general.

Their wordsMore education can help us only if it produces more wisdom.

Their wordsThe keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and non-violence.

Their wordsBuddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character.

Their wordsWe must study the economics of permanence.