Overconsumption Quotes

• Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Environmental, Today

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• We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Two, Roots

  77 Copy quote

• Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

  Hippocrates

  Excess, Consumerism

  "Catholic Morality: Selected Sayings and Some Account of Various Religions". Book by E. Comyns Durnford, p. 90, 1915.

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• True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.

  Aristotle

  Happiness, Flow, Virtue

  Aristotle (2012). “Politics”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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• We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

  Winston Churchill

  Sad, Wealth, Consumerism

  Sir Winston Churchill, Jack Fishman (1974). “If I lived my life again”, W.H. Allen

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• Overconsumption is the mother of all environmental problems. For the first time in the history of capitalism, consumption itself has become controversial.

  Kalle Lasn

  Mother, Environmental, Firsts

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• Over-consumption is a cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask the moral questions.

  Richard J. Foster

  Spiritual, Distance, Cancer

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• There are two ways to be rich - one in the abundance of your possessions and the other in the fewness of your wants.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Two, Want, Way

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• In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

  Ivan Illich

  Two, Envy, Addiction

  Tools for Conviviality ch. 3 (1973)

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• We over-eat, over-buy, and over-built, spewing out our toxic wastes upon the earth and into the air.

  Richard J. Foster

  Air, Toxic Waste, Earth

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• It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Greed, Abundance, Produce

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• Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these attitudes cause. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.

  Pope John Paul II

  Attitude, Sacrifice, Discipline

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• Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.

  Adam Smith

  Purpose, Ends, Sole

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.8.

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• Not what you possess but what you do with what you have, determines your true worth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Consumerism, Determine, True Worth

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• Too much of the world's happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. To increase my standard of living, someone in another part of the world must lower his. The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness. Industrialized nations acquire appetites for more and more luxuries and higher and higher standards of living, and increasing numbers of people are made poor and hungry. It doesn't have to be that way.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Luxury, Numbers, People

  Eugene H. Peterson (2012). “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society”, p.118, InterVarsity Press

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• Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

  John Ruskin

  Workout, Simplicity, Consumerism

  The Eagle's Nest ch. 5 (1872)

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• Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough.

  Saint Basil

  Men, Enough, Consumerism

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• Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Advice, Liberty, Want

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.402

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• To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.

  George MacDonald

  Power, Contentment, Want

  George MacDonald (1884). “Donal Grant”, p.3, CCEL

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• The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Running, Time

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.28, Graphic Arts Books

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• Advertising tries to stimulate our sensuous desires, converting luxuries into necessities, but it only intensifies man's inner misery. The business world is bent on creating hungers which its wares never satisfy, and thus it adds to the frustrations and broken minds of our times.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Frustration, Men, Luxury

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• He who multiplies riches multiplies cares.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Caring, Care, Riches

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Way to Wealth and Poor Richard's Almanac”, p.23, Nayika Publishing

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• We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependant on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do.

  Wendell Berry

  Thinking, Waste, Obstacles

  Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.201, Counterpoint

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• But prosperity without a soul is like a corpse whose heart has stopped beating. There is no life, only consumption.

  Cal Thomas

  Heart, Soul, Prosperity

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• That the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily created; every man, in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless instruments and conveniencies, of which, while he did not know them, he never felt the need; and yet, when use has made them familiar, wonders how life could be supported without them. Thus it comes to pass, that our desires always increase with our possessions; the knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Desire, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.44

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