E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"

I just finished reading the best-known short story by the author of "Passage to India" and found it beautiful and disturbing at the same time. It is very similar to "1984" but it was written years before, so Forster's is not a mere copy. Vashti and Kuno (mother and son) live in a post-apocalyptic era in which the Machine controls everything. And that's all I can tell without spoiling it. Here you have the best quotations I took from the book:

Something ‘good enough’ had long since been accepted by our race.

By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of litter –one book.

Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air of their rooms.

Man’s feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong.

The Machine develops –but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds –but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.

I was surrounded by artificial air, artificial light, artificial peace.

Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven.

Apparently, there's a short movie based on the book. You can watch it here.