The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and… — Ivan Illich Copy Share Image
The surplus of society overrides all our traditions and shapes all our philosophies. — Walter Weyl Copy Share Image
Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class. — Matthew Arnold Copy Share Image
True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods. — Aristotle Copy Share Image
The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time… — Jim Wallis Copy Share Image
The sense that materialism has gotten out of hand is magnified by the pressures facing middle-class American families. — Robert Wuthnow Copy Share Image
The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth. — Franklin D. Roosevelt Copy Share Image
Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate… — George Perkins Marsh Copy Share Image
How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why… — Ambrose Copy Share Image
Heaven help a timid child in a trendy tide He really doesn't know That his heart's being taken for a ride Doing… — Mark Heard Copy Share Image
The whole attempt to advance the kind of consumer society that depends for its growth on the ceaseless stimulation of unlimited covetousness… — Lesslie Newbigin Copy Share Image
The gospel preached during every television show is 'You only go around once in life, so get all the gusto you can.'… — John Silber Copy Share Image
What is the chief end of man?-to get rich. In what way?-dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must. Who is God,… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
The horseman serves the horse, The neat-herd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat; 'Tis the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is… — Robert Neelly Bellah 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
O America, how you've taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. — Martin Luther King, Jr Copy Share Image
Having rationally endeavored to control nature, is he not now becoming the slave of the objects which he makes? — Pope Paul VI Copy Share Image
The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing. — William Ralph Inge Copy Share Image
It is more blessed to give than to receive, but then it is also more blessed to be able to do without… — Soren Kierkegaard Copy Share Image
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
High thinking is inconsistent with a complicated material life based on high speed and imposed on us by mammon worship. — Mahatma Gandhi Copy Share Image
Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
Modern capitalism has created a world totally different from anything known before. — Lesslie Newbigin Copy Share Image
Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find-nothing. — Aesop Copy Share Image
No one who had once learned to identify happiness with wealth ever felt that he had wealth enough. — Joy Davidman Copy Share Image
Consumption is the death of capital, and the only valid arguments in favor of consumption are arguments in favor of death itself. — Kenneth E. Boulding Copy Share Image
Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today — Jacques Yves Cousteau Copy Share Image
It is important to recognize that behind the razzmatazz of consumerism, we all remain dependent on basic natural resources - land, air,… — Klaus Topfer Copy Share Image
It is not because food, clothes and property are inherently evil that Christians today must lower their standard of living. It is… — Ronald J. Sider Copy Share Image
The reality is that our economy now consists of driving 250 million vehicles around the suburbs and malls and eating fried chicken.… — Joe Bageant Copy Share Image
Consume more than you need This is the dream Make you pauper Or make you queen I won't die lonely I'll have… — Tracy Chapman Copy Share Image
