Amory Lovins Quotes

• Today we have a temporary aberration called "industrial capitalism" which is inadvertently liquidating its two most important sources of capital, the natural world and properly functioning societies.
  No sensible capitalist would do that.

  Amory Lovins

  Inspirational, Money, Nature

  "The Blue Economy 3.0: The Marriage of Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Creates a New Business Model That Transforms Society". Book by Gunter Pauli, 2017.

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• What if we could make energy do our work without working our undoing?

  Amory Lovins

  Motivation, Inspiration, What If

  "Climate Change: No Breakthroughs Needed". sustainability.asu.edu. June 27, 2016.

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• 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

  Life, Intelligent, Thinking

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• We've got 21st century technology and speed colliding head-on with 20th and 19th century institutions, rules and cultures.

  Amory Lovins

  Technology, Culture, Speed

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• 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

  Giving, Environmental, Energy

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• 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

  Fire, Healthy, Needs

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• 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

  People, Environmental, Way

  14 Copy quote

• The markets make a good servant but a bad master, and a worse religion.

  Amory Lovins

  Masters, Servant

  "This much I know: Amory Lovins". Interview with Lucy Siegle, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2008.

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• 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

  Inspirational, Business, Design

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Design, Cost, Energy

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• Energy-saving technologies keep improving faster than they're applied, so efficiency is an ever larger and cheaper resource.

  Amory Lovins

  Technology, Energy, Saving

  "Amory Lovins on energy". CNN Interview, www.cnn.com. October 16, 2008.

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• I'm a practitioner of elegant frugality. I don't feel comfortable telling other people what to do, so I just try and lead by example.

  Amory Lovins

  People, Trying, Example

  "This much I know: Amory Lovins". Interview with Lucy Siegle, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2008.

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• I am a man without a furnace. My windows are insulated by 19 sheets of glass which cost less than installing a heating system.

  Amory Lovins

  Men, Glasses, Cost

  "This much I know: Amory Lovins". Interview with Lucy Siegle, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2008.

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• Our energy future is choice, not fate. Oil dependence is a problem we need no longer have-and it's cheaper not to. U.S. oil dependence can be eliminated by proven and attractive technologies that create wealth, enhance choice, and strengthen common security.

  Amory Lovins

  Fate, Technology, Oil

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Long, Bells

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Nature, Otters, Crow

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• In the model that we grew up with, governments rule physical territory in which national economies function, and strong economies support hegemonic military power. In the new model, already emerging under our noses, economic decisions don't pay much attention to national sovereignty in a world where more than half of the one hundred or two hundred largest economic entities are not countries but companies.

  Amory Lovins

  Country, Strong, Military

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Energy, Littles, Environment

  "Amory Lovins: Energy Analyst and Environmentalist". The Plowboy Interview, www.motherearthnews.com. November/December 1977.

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• 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

  Faces, Economics, Economy

  "Power Q&A: Amory Lovins". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. May/June 2008.

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• 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

  Wind, Energy, Income

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• Facts are more mundane than fantasies, but a better basis for conclusions.

  Amory Lovins

  Facts, Fantasy, Conclusion

  "Sparks Fly" by James Howard Kunstler and Amory Lovins, www.salon.com. May 27, 2005.

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• 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

  Life, Leadership, Healing

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• 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

  Home, Alaska, Oil

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• Many analysts now regard modest, zero, or negative growth in our rate of energy use as a realistic long-term goal.

  Amory Lovins

  Zero, Long, Goal

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• Any demanding high technology tends to develop influential and dedicated constituencies of those who link its commercial success with both the public welfare and their own. Such sincerely held beliefs, peer pressures, and the harsh demands that the work itself places on time and energy all tend to discourage such people from acquiring a similarly thorough knowledge of alternative policies and the need to discuss them.

  Amory Lovins

  Technology, Thorough Knowledge, People

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