Quote

Economies are supposed to serve human ends.. not the other way round. We forget at our peril that markets make a good servant, a bad master and a worse religion.

Amory Lovins

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Amory Lovins
Age: 76
Born: 1947
Born: November 13
Businessperson
Car Designer
Environmentalist
Physicist
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Amory B. Lovins
Way
Worse
Servant
Make
Masters
Round
Good
Economy
Rounds
People
Forget
Economics
Religion
Environmental
Ends
Master
Economies
Human
Serve
Peril
Humans
Supposed
Markets

More quotes by Amory Lovins

Image
What if we could make energy do our work without working our undoing?
Amory Lovins
Image
If you ask the wrong question, of course, you get the wrong answer. We find in design it's much more important and difficult to ask the right question. Once you do that, the right answer becomes obvious.
Amory Lovins
Image
If you ask me, it'd be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it.
Amory Lovins
Image
By skimping on design, the owner gets costlier equipment, higher energy costs, and a less competitive and comfortable building the tenants get lower productivity and higher rent and operating costs.
Amory Lovins
Image
The markets make a good servant but a bad master, and a worse religion.
Amory Lovins
Image
We'd find more energy in the attics of American homes (through energy conservation measures) than in all the oil buried in Alaska.
Amory Lovins
Image
Rely on renewable energy flows that are always there whether we use them or not, such as, sun, wind and vegetation: on energy income, not depletable energy capital.
Amory Lovins
Image
Facts are more mundane than fantasies, but a better basis for conclusions.
Amory Lovins
Image
A package of 35 improvements to typical industrial motor systems can save around 50% of their metered energy…with a simple payback under 16 months.
Amory Lovins
Image
Energy-saving technologies keep improving faster than they're applied, so efficiency is an ever larger and cheaper resource.
Amory Lovins
Image
The barriers that renewables and efficiency face come less from our living in a capitalist market economy and more from not taking market economics seriously.
Amory Lovins
Image
I once met an economist who believed that everything was fungible for money, so I suggested he enclose himself in a large bell-jar with as much money as he wanted and see how long he lasted.
Amory Lovins
Image
If you ask me, it'd be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.
Amory Lovins
Image
The reason the U.S. lags so badly is that we have obsolete rules that favor big over small, supply over efficiency, and incumbents over new market entrants.
Amory Lovins
Image
Many business leaders are asking fundamental questions about what business they're in, why they are doing it and how it can be used as a means of healing human and natural communities.
Amory Lovins
Image
We've got 21st century technology and speed colliding head-on with 20th and 19th century institutions, rules and cultures.
Amory Lovins
Image
Fire made us human, fossil fuels made us modern, but now we need a new fire that makes us safe, secure, healthy and durable.
Amory Lovins
Image
Prominent exploration experts have recently predicted that total world production of liquid oil will peak by about the end of this decade-or a few years later if production does not rise much-and will decline thereafter.
Amory Lovins
Image
Nature does not compromise a pelican is not a compromise between a crow and otter, it is just a pelican. Nature makes no compromises any inefficient products are recalled to the manufacturer!
Amory Lovins
Image
I think along the way, as we treat nature as model and mentor, and not as a nuisance to be evaded or manipulated, we will certainly acquire much more reverence for life than we seem to be showing right now.
Amory Lovins