“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. ”

“It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”

“It goes without saying that a civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.”

“If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man — and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages — it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

“What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking-there’s the real danger.”

“Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs. ”