{
  "type": "quote",
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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-bellamy/looking-backward/the-folly-of-men",
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  "text": "The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, a colossal world-darkening blunder.",
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  "author": {
    "name": "Edward Bellamy",
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  "book": {
    "title": "Looking Backward",
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    {
      "name": "stupidity",
      "slug": "stupidity",
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      "name": "poverty",
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  "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:25",
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      "id": "f23b34e5-e655-4cdc-a39a-215b5249a5d4",
      "slug": "the-greater-efficiency",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-bellamy/looking-backward/the-greater-efficiency",
      "text": "The greater efficiency which education gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short period for the time lost in acquiring it.",
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      "chapter": null,
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      "id": "c6c96e6c-16c5-4d6f-af43-7f8dba728fed",
      "slug": "all-thoughtful-men",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/edward-bellamy/looking-backward/all-thoughtful-men",
      "text": "All thoughtful men agree that the present aspect of society is portentous of great changes. The only question is, whether they will be for the better or the worse. Those who believe in man's essential nobleness lean to the former view, those who believe in his essential baseness to the latter. For my part, I hold to the former opinion. Looking Backward was written in the belief that the Golden Age lies before us and not behind us, and is not far away. Our children will surely see it, and we, too, who are already men and women, if we deserve it by our faith and by our works.",
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "human nature",
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        {
          "name": "change",
          "slug": "change",
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      "id": "43afb4e5-f63e-4d8e-8423-6920f1c1c468",
      "slug": "their-system-of-unorganized",
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      "text": "Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible.'",
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "selfishness",
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