A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of… - Lewis Mumford

Here was my city, immense, overpowering, flooded with energy and light... The world, at that moment , opened before me, challenging me, beckoning me, demanding something of me that it would take more than a lifetime to give, but raising all my energies by its own vivid promise to a higher pitch.

It is only at a high stage of individuation, made possible at first by the painted or carved image, the written symbol, and the printed book, that true freedom-the freedom to escape from the passing moment and the present visible place, to challenge past experience or modify future action-can be achieved. To be aware only of immediate stimuli and immediate sensations is a medical indication of brain injury.

But perhaps the greatest threat to the efficiency of the megamachine came from within: from its rigidity and repression of individual ability, and from a sheer lack of rational purpose.