Consumerism Quotes
133 quotes
"Like Alexander the Great and Caesar, I’m out to conquer the world. But first I have to stop at Walmart and pick up some supplies."
"Nin knew how much humans loved money, riches, and material things—though he never really could understand why. The more technologically advanced the human species got, the more isolated they seemed to become, at the same time. It was alarming, how humans could spend entire lifetimes engaged in all kinds of activities, without getting any closer to knowing who they really were, inside."
"We are a society of notoriously unhappy people: lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive, dependent — people who are glad when we have killed the time we are trying so hard to save."
"If doctors are paid the same salary as bus drivers, community would not be crazy about making their children doctors"
"The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services....What people do or make but will not or cannot put up for sale is as immeasurable and as invaluable for the economy as the oxygen they breathe."
Ivan Illich, The Right to Useful Unemployment and Its Professional Enemies
"Just because everyone CAN publish a book these days, doesn't mean everyone SHOULD. The world doesn't need 1000 knock-offs of 50 Shades of Grey. I'm not so sure the world even needed ONE 50 Shades of Grey."
"The prose is deeply inspired by the tension between post- totalitarianism and consumer democracy. I am constantly probing the soft fleshy parts of the American dream."
"Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.At least the ancient Greeks were being honest."
"Little people doing little things in little places everywhere can change the world."
"When deeply religious subjects view sacred iconography or reflect on their notion of God, brain scans reveal hyperactivity in the caudate nucleus, a part of the pleasure system that correlates with feelings of joy, love, and serenity. But Lindstrom and Calvert found that this same brain region lights up when subjects view images associated with strong brands like Ferrari or Apple."
"The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them."
"When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor."
"Getting through life without a lot of money, possessions, and/or friends is admirable, especially if it is by choice."
"The second most dangerous thing about money is that it leaves most of the people who have a lot of it with the unshakable belief that they are intelligent and well informed. The most dangerous thing about it is that it leaves most of the people who do not have a lot of money with the very same belief."
"Some people will insult your intelligence by suddenly being nice or nicer to you once you make it … or they think you have."
"Most of the very few people who would choose a good heart over riches would eventually use that to either make a lot of money, or attract men or women who are rich."
"The faster you go, the idler you get."
"A customer facing crucial decisions: What should I wipe myself with? What should I brush with? His personal hygiene was deteriorating rapidly as he stared at the rows of possibilities, sweating profusely. Would he ever bathe again?"
"Perhaps if we could popularise through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea, a different narrative, perhaps the world can change. After all it changes constantly and incessantly, it's just the perceptions that we have are governed by people with self-interest and are not inalignment with the health and safety of us as individuals or as a planet."
"Most people do not mind having a house that is smaller and/or a car that is cheaper than their neighbours’, as long as they each earn and have more money than their neighbours, and, equally important, their neighbours know that."
"We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell."
"In the marketing society, we seek fulfillment but settle for abundance. Prisoners of plenty, we have the freedom to consume in stead of our freedom to find our place in the world."
"It used to be that rebels were the type who wore leather jackets, rode motorcycles, smoked cigarettes and drank cheap domestic beer. Today’s rebels are people who look at their world critically and observe the ensnaring patterns of the consumeristic lifestyle." (Life Hacks, p.50"
Jon Morrison, Life Hacks: Nine Ideas That Will Change How You Do Everything
"The way of the consumerist culture is to spend so much energy chasing happiness that it has none left to be happy."
"You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?"
Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
"Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of -5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card."
"Because he has finally realized that it is it and not him that is loved by the woman he loves, many a man is jealous of his own car, house, wardrobe, or salary."
"Many a woman is in a relationship with or married to her man not because she loves him but only because she likes men like him."
"Many a woman would not be in a relationship with or married to her man, if he earned half of what he earns; and many a man would not be in a relationship with or married to his woman, if he earned twice as much as he earns."
"Some people will each start investing more of their salary on ‘their’ house and spending less of it on ‘their’ car or cars only when they start being able to take ‘their’ house to work, funerals, weddings, etc."
"All told, over the period 1932-1980, nearly half a century, the top federal income tax rate in the United States averaged 81 percent."
"Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books."
"A balanced dieT to make you die with a tea, consists of holding two bags of cookies on each hand and a voracious hunger to consume."
"The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them."
"I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in, a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that our future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall."
"All we do is work to maximise our consumption privileges and to be able to tell people at parties that we’re a lawyer, an artist or a police officer."
Robert Wringham, Escape Everything!: Escape From Work. Escape From Consumerism. Escape From Despair.
"The decadent artist markets other people's pain"
"The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it—just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her."
"If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough."
"We no longer live life. We consume it."
"Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers."
"Don't get too lost in consumerism or materialism. As for ownership, the ultimate test of it is were you born with it and can you take it with you when you leave?"
"Today we live in a society that seems to be less and less concerned with reality. We drink instant coffee and reconstituted orange juice. We buy our vegetables on cardboard trays covered with plastic. But perhaps the most dehumanizing thing of all is that we have allowed the media to call us consumers--ugly. No! I don't want to be a consumer. Anger consumes. Forest fires consume. Cancer consumes."
"This is the typical fallacy on which all of CONSUMER AMERICA is based. Some piece of useless crap will make people like you."
"These days only a guerrilla or a box man would want to cover up his identity to the extent of refusing the convenience of instalment buying. But I am that box man. A representative of anti-instalmentism."
"Our identity is affected less and less by what we produce and more and more by what we consume."
Pete Sanders, Politicizing the Person-Centred Approach: An Agenda for Social Change
"As universities have turned into businesses, so students have turned into consumers."
"We believe we are the consumers, but we are the consumed."
"I became one of those anonymous Americans who tries to keep his mind sharp and inquisitive while performing all the humiliating rituals of the middle class"
"Psychotherapy and counselling should make people aware of themselves and of the difficulties which they face. This then gives them the freedom to choose for themselves. In this sense, unlike behaviour therapy, psychotherapy is value-free: no advice, suggestions or recriminations are given. Indeed the only value of psychotherapy is respect for the individual. Such respect, however, in a mechanistic and objectifying society ... becomes a political act."
Paul Kline, Psychology Exposed, Or, the Emperor's New Clothes
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