43 Consumption Quotes

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot.

To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.

News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.

The road to ignorance is paved with good editions. Only the illiterate can afford to buy good books now.

I've bought more music for my Ipod in one year than I bought in the last ten years of my life.

They who drink beer will think beer.

Eating is an agricultural act.

Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.

'The more advertising I see, the less I want to buy'

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.

Our people are steadily increasing their spending for higher standards of living. Today there are almost nine automobiles for each ten families, where seven and one-half years ago only enough automobiles were running to average less than four for each ten families. The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage. Our people have more to eat, better things to wear, and better homes.

Unfortunately, once an economy is geared to expansion, the means rapidly turn into an end and 'the going becomes the goal.' Even more unfortunately, the industries that are favored by such expansion must, to maintain their output, be devoted to goods that are readily consumable either by their nature, or because they are so shoddily fabricated that they must soon be replaced. By fashion and build-in obsolescence the economies of machine production, instead of producing leisure and durable wealth, are duly cancelled out by the mandatory consumption on an even larger scale.

There are people who eat earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. And other people who stand around and watch them eat.

Money is the poor man's credit card. (1964)

The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life out of them, molding them into money.

'I love things made out of animals,' Sedaris says, holding a knife with a hoof for a handle. 'It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.''

Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati.

The mountains of things we throw aware are greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the reckless exuberance of our production and waste seems to be the index.

A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I felt like I went to somebody else's birthday party and I ate all their cake. Without anybody else getting a piece. That's how I felt.

Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives!

For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption.

I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which 'man' is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.

'But yeah! It's exciting to finally have something out even if it's one song. I know most of you probably already have rips of Stiff Kittens but dig up some change in the cushions of your couch and buy it. If you put the change in the CD tray of your computer and close it, the money goes right to Apple and the song automatically downloads to your desktop.

He left an estate of eleaven thousand pounds per annum. Sir John Danvers, who knew him, told me that he had heard one say to him, reflecting on his great scraping of wealth, that his sonnes would spend his Estate faster than he gott it; he replyed, They cannot take more delight in the spending of it than I did in the getting of it.

[Modern capitalism] is masterful at producing services people don't need and in large part probably don't want. It is brilliant at convincing people that they do need and want them. But it has difficulty turning itself to the production of those services which people really do need. Not only that, it often spends an enormous amount of time and effort convincing people that those services are either unrealistic, marginal or counterproductive.

I told him...that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst.

Le luxe absorbe tout: on le blame, mais il faut l'imiter; et le superflu finit par priver du necessaire.

Hi, I'm Ricky Bobby. Christmas is just around the corner, and what better gift to give a loved one [pulls out knife] than the Jack Hawk 9000? Available at Wal-Mart!

Images. Millions of images. That's what I eat.

'Under the Enrichment Laws, consumers have to spend a fixed quota of dollars each month, depending on their strata. Hoarding is an anti-corpocratic crime.' (An Orison of Somni ~451, p.237)

Cook me in your breakfast, and put me on your plate, 'cause you know i taste great.

In the nuclear family the child is confronted by only two adults contrasted by sex. The tendency towards polarization is unavoidable. The duplication of effort in the nuclear family is directly connected to the family's role as the principal unit of consumption in consumer society. Each household is destined to acquire a complete set of all the consumer durables considered necessary for the good life and per caput consumption is therefore maintained at its highest level. In sex, as in consumption, the nuclear family emphasizes possession and exclusivity at the expense of the kinds of emotional relationships that work for co-operation and solidarity.

Always store beer in a dark place,