Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Criticism of a group for building things that become burdens.
In plain terms
He did not support a race that creates things they must flee.
What can you take from it?
Progress should not create burdens that require escape.

Where it applies

  • societal critique
  • tech ethics
  • historical analysis

Putting it to work

  • evaluate tech impact
  • assess long term effects
  • question innovation

Questions to consider

  • Does innovation often outpace our ability to manage it?
  • What burdens does your society carry?

Another view

It generalizes an entire race or group's efforts.

More from John Steinbeck

  1. There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toot…

    Permalink to quote #55
  2. I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

    Permalink to quote #57
  3. The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It's as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to …

    Permalink to quote #54

Related quotes

  1. The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to…

    Lewis MumfordLewis Mumford quote #2
  2. If we have learned anything at all in this century, it is that all new technologies will be put to use, sooner or later, for better or worse, as it is in our n…

    Lewis ThomasLewis Thomas quote #6
  3. Sirs, I have tested your machine. It adds a new terror to life and makes death a long-felt want.

    Herbert Beerbohm TreeHerbert Beerbohm Tree quote #6