Overconsumption Quotes - Page 3

• Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.

  Ernest Becker

  Drinking, Men, Shopping

  Ernest Becker (1985). “The Denial of Death”, New York : Free Press

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• We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

  Aesop

  Wisdom, Sorry, Often Is

  Aesop, Grimm, Andersen (1909). “Folk-Lore and Fable”

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• What will you do if your product still further increases next year? You should then destroy again the warehouses which you are now preparing to build, and build bigger. For the reason why God has given you fruitful harvests is that He might either overcome your avarice or condemn it; wherefore you can have no excuse. But you keep for yourself what He wished to be produced through you for the benefit of many - nay, rather, you rob even yourself of it, since you would better preserve it for yourself if you distributed it to others.

  Ambrose

  Years, Overcoming, Benefits

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• The idea is the least labor and capital and resources you put together and the more you accumulate the better capitalist you are. So the suggestion I will make to you is that the idea of constant accumulation, which is what America is about, what consumerism, NAFTA are about, means that you always take more than you need and you don't leave the rest. So I suggest that it is possible from an indigenous world view that capitalism is inherently out of order with natural law.

  Winona LaDuke

  Mean, Order, Law

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• Modern capitalism has created a world totally different from anything known before.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Different, World, Modern

  Lesslie Newbigin (1988). “Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture”, p.111, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• The reality is that our economy now consists of driving 250 million vehicles around the suburbs and malls and eating fried chicken. We don't manufacture much. We just burn up ever scarcer petroleum in the ever-expanding suburbs built with mortgage money lent to people who haven't a clue.

  Joe Bageant

  Reality, People, Driving

  Joe Bageant (2008). “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War”, p.76, Broadway Books

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• To the extent that we consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd. But what can we do? Must we go on writing letters to politicians and donating to conservation organizations until the majority of our fellow citizens agree with us? Or can we do something directly to solve our share of the problem? I am a conservationist. I believe wholeheartedly in putting pressure on the politicians and in maintaining the conservation organizations.

  Wendell Berry

  Believe, Writing, Organization

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• In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage.

  Lewis Mumford

  Real, Names, Squirrels

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• The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.

  Karl Marx

  Country, Character, Feet

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• Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.

  Will Rogers

  Wisdom, Advice, Live Your Life

  Will Rogers, Bryan B. Sterling, Frances N. Sterling (1993). “Will Rogers' World: America's Foremost Political Humorist Comments on the Twenties and Thirties--and Eighties and Nineties”, p.229, Rowman & Littlefield

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• It was with the Industrial Revolution, as society plunged ever more eagerly into the conquest of material riches and bent all its energies to the accumulation of goods, that material poverty became a major problem. Obviously, this meant abandonment or downgrading of spiritual values, virtue, etc. To share or not to share in the increase of the collective wealth-this was the Number One question. It was the desire to acquire wealth that prompted the poor to start fighting.

  Jacques Ellul

  Spiritual, Fighting, Numbers

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• The conversation of most middle-class Americans, we are told, revolves around consumption: what to buy, what was just bought, where to eat, the price of the neighbor's house, what's on sale this week, our clothes or someone else's, the best car on the market this year, where to spend a vacation. Apparently we can't stop eating, shopping, or consuming. Success is measured not in terms of love, wisdom, and maturity but by the size of one's pile of possessions.

  Brennan Manning

  Vacation, Maturity, Years

  Brennan Manning (2011). “The Signature of Jesus”, p.45, Multnomah

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• Having rationally endeavored to control nature, is he not now becoming the slave of the objects which he makes?

  Pope Paul VI

  Becoming, Slave, Consumerism

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• All plenty which is not my God is poverty to me.

  Saint Augustine

  Poverty, Consumerism, Plenty

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• As riches grow, care follows, and a thirst For more and more.

  Horace

  Care, Riches, Consumerism

  Horace (1931). “The Complete Works of Horace”

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• And I encourage you all to go shopping more

  George W. Bush

  Shopping, Consumerism

  News Conference, www.nytimes.com. December 20, 2006.

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• Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Names, Giving, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• Two opposing gospels are fighting one another for the soul of our nation and, increasingly, the world: the gospel of consumption and the gospel of peace.

  Leonard Sweet

  Fighting, Two, Soul

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• How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right?

  Ambrose

  Earth, Common, Rich

  "The Cry for Justice" by Upton Sinclair, p. 397, 1915.

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• Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.

  Erich Fromm

  Men, Fellow Man, Commodity

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Art of Loving”, p.88, Open Road Media

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• 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

  Favors, Argument, Consumerism

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• No one who had once learned to identify happiness with wealth ever felt that he had wealth enough.

  Joy Davidman

  Wealth, Enough, Consumerism

  Joy Davidman (1985). “Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments”, p.120, Westminster John Knox Press

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• It is not because food, clothes and property are inherently evil that Christians today must lower their standard of living. It is because others are starving. Creation is good. But the one who gave us this gorgeous token of his affection has asked us to share it with our sisters and brothers.

  Ronald J. Sider

  Christian, Brother, Clothes

  Ronald J. Sider (2015). “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity”, p.107, Thomas Nelson

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• What we're talking about is the endless, gullible elevation of necessary levels of comfort and status and everything else at the complete expense of all around us. It's going to take us a long time to learn how to climb down a little bit from the heights on which we have put ourselves.

  Bill McKibben

  Talking, Long, Comfort

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• Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds.

  Teresa of Avila

  Humility, Suffering, Desire

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