We are a material-mad race of people. Build, increase, expand, pile up, hoard! More and more and more. "If we can just… — Eugenia Price Copy Share Image
Too much of the world's happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. To increase my standard of living, someone in… — Eugene H. Peterson Copy Share Image
I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved… — Wendell Berry Copy Share Image
Overconsumption is a "cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals." It cuts the heart right out of our compassion. It distances us… — Richard J. Foster Copy Share Image
The most outstanding characteristic of Eastern civilization is to know contentment, whereas that of Western civilization is not to know contentment. Contented… — Hu Shih Copy Share Image
Under private property, each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction of his own… — Karl Marx Copy Share Image
Too many commercials, too many lies Too many celebrities I don't recognize Too many brand names, too many magazines I got so… — Fred Small Copy Share Image
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a "disposable" culture which is now… — Pope Francis Copy Share Image
In this state of total consumerism-which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives… — Wendell Berry Copy Share Image
We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless… — Pope Francis Copy Share Image
The danger, then, is that materialism is not only shaping how we live but the way we think as well. It influences… — Robert Wuthnow Copy Share Image
We did not choose to believe that personal choice is the highest human virtue. Rather, we were taught, formed, forced to believe… — William Henry Willimon Copy Share Image
Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Man today is fascinated by the possibility of buying, more, better, and especially, new things. He is consumption hungry... To buy the… — Erich Fromm Copy Share Image
What will you do if your product still further increases next year? You should then destroy again the warehouses which you are… — Ambrose Copy Share Image
Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification; this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter… — Alexis de Tocqueville Copy Share Image
We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes… — Jacques Yves Cousteau Copy Share Image
We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments,… — William James Copy Share Image
The illusion that consumption - and its correlative, income - is desirable probably stems from too great preoccupation with what Knight calls… — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
In fast-moving, progress-conscious America, the consumer expects to be dizzied by progress. If he could completely understand advertising jargon he would be… — Daniel J. Boorstin Copy Share Image
Before our eyes we have the results of ideologies such as Marxism, Nazism and fascism, and also of myths like racial superiority,… — Pope John Paul II Copy Share Image
New pressures are causing ever more people to find their main satisfaction in their consumptive role rather than in their productive role.… — Vance Packard Copy Share Image
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
American culture is no longer created by the people... A free, authentic life is no longer possible in AmericaTM today. We are… — Kalle Lasn Copy Share Image
When I lost my faith in people I put my trust in things To avoid the disappointment Trusting people brings... I tried… — John Gorka Copy Share Image
Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a… — Benjamin Franklin Copy Share Image
McWorld is a product of popular culture driven by expansionist commerce. Its template is American, its form style. Its goods are as… — Benjamin Barber Copy Share Image
Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To… — Alan Thein Durning Copy Share Image
A vital difference between the professional man and a man of business is that money making to the professional man should, by… — Frank Lloyd Wright Copy Share Image
At a certain fork in the road of automatization, Europeans chose to have more time, and they work far less than we… — Rebecca Solnit Copy Share Image
As businessmen caught a glimpse of the potentialities inherent in endlessly expanding the wants of people under consumerism, forced draft or otherwise,… — Vance Packard Copy Share Image
The religion and the environmentalism of the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to… — Wendell Berry Copy Share Image
The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it… — Raoul Vaneigem Copy Share Image
The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This drive to always want more is based on the misconceptions that having more will make me more happy, more important, and… — Rick Warren Copy Share Image
Based on technological research and the transformation of nature, industrialization constantly goes forward, giving proof of incessant creativity. While certain enterprises develop… — Pope Paul VI Copy Share Image
The goals of development are always and everywhere stated in terms of consumer value packages standardized around the North Atlantic-and therefore always… — Ivan Illich Copy Share Image
If we were built, what were we built for? ... Why do we have this amazing collection of sinews, senses, and sensibilities?… — Bill McKibben Copy Share Image
For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be… — Gilbert K. Chesterton Copy Share Image
We used to say I don't care if I never have any money As long as I have my sweet honey and… — Greg Brown Copy Share Image
