Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.
Lewis MumfordRead
In its revolt against congestion and sordor, a space-hungry generation has, I fear, developed eyes that are bigger than its stomach.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights society's tendency to desire more than it can handle, leading to dissatisfaction and overextension.
Lewis Mumford's quote reflects on the modern generation's unquenchable thirst for space and comfort, suggesting that this yearning often exceeds their actual capacity to manage it. The metaphor of having 'eyes bigger than its stomach' implies that while people may aspire to acquire more, they frequently overlook the implications and responsibilities that come with those desires, ultimately leading to chaos and discontent.
Themes
DesireCapacitySocietyOverextensionDiscontent
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on consumerism, one might quote Mumford to illustrate the pitfalls of excessive ambition.
More from Lewis Mumford
All quotes βNeither democracy nor effective representation is possible until each participant in the group...devotes a measurable part of his life to furthering its existence.
Lewis MumfordRead
Moment to moment, it turns out, is not God's conception, or nature's. It is man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he created."We effectively became "time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers" with the invention of the clock."
Lewis MumfordRead
By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed.
Lewis MumfordRead
The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is actually the right to destroy the city.
Lewis MumfordRead
The very people who shudder over the cruelty of the hunter are apt to forget that slaughter, in the grimmest sense of the word, is a process they entrust daily to the butcher; and that unlike the game of the forests, even the dumbest creatures of the slaughterhouse know what is in store for them.
Lewis MumfordRead
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