Quotes About Materialism

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

gold, silver, and diamonds, are things that fancy or agreement hath put the value on, more than real use

families where the parents float around in a haze of brightly coloured hemp and honey-almond candles, a copy of a self-help book tucked under an arm, and a Dalai Lama keyring for their four-wheel-drive clutched in their hand.

Emerson decried the life of the average person, so intent on satisfying the monotonous wants of an unexceptional life that the omnipresent miracles of the universe are invisible to him. Let the sun go up the sky, and the moon shine, and innumerable stars move before him in orbits so vast that centuries will not fulfill them…. He does not care—he does not know—he is creeping in a little path of his own…following a few appetites…peering around for a little bread.

Stuart and Jenna exchanged rings-platinum band for Stuart, and platinum with diamonds for Jenna, but they could have been aluminum or plastic. Expensive rings did not guarantee a happy life together.

Charlie's face twists into a snarl and he starts to rant. "You ungrateful bitch, I've worked my ass to the bone for you and the kids, two college tuitions, the fancy house you had to have in Swellesley, the Escalade you begged for because you thought it would make you look cool in front of Electra.

Having as yet never lost anything, she didn't value anything.

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

I go to taste simplicity. Not the simplicity of a golden age; but the simplicity of gold and tinsel.

What we buy belongs to us only when the price is forgotten.

God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

I can't help feeling that people ask too much [of life]. They don't keep up with the Joneses any more--they outstrip them. What people call happiness, today, isn't happiness. It's enjoyment. It's pleasure. And between happiness and pleasure there's a very large gap.

can't help feeling that people ask too much. They don't keep up with the Joneses any more—they outstrip them. What people call happiness, today, isn't happiness. It's enjoyment. It's pleasure. And between happiness and pleasure there's a very large gap.

All you ever care about is money. That's all that matters to you! The only thing you understand is money, what a thing is worth in money.

Whatever you have lost there are more of, just not yours.

Veblen espoused the Veblenian opinion that wanting a big house full of cheaply produced versions of so-called luxury items was teh greatest soul-sucking trap of modern civilization, and that these copycat mansions away from the heart and soul of a city had ensnared their overmortgaged owners - yes, trapped and relocated them like pests.

I pledge allegiance, to the marketplace, of the United States of America. TM. And to the conglomerates, for which we shill, one nation under Exxon-Mobile/Halliburton/Boeing/Walmart, nonrefundable, with litter and junk mail for all!

If an American worker saw you driving a Cadillac, he worked to. earn enough to buy one for himself; the English worker, on the other hand, sought to deprive you of yours.

Now that we can buy anything we want we seem to read detective stories.

The story of my life can be told in silver: in chocolate mills, serving spoons, and services for twelve. The story of my life has nothing to do with me. The story of my life is things. Things that aren't mine, that won't ever be mine. It's all I've ever known. I wish it wasn't.

She'd filled the house with plants and flowers, been good to Ana, she'd packed suitcases for their expensive vacations, waited while he played golf, and mostly (Pam was right about this) listened while Jim talked about himself endlessly, how smart he'd been in court that day, how he was the best in the business and everyone knew it.… She had bought him a drawer full of cuff links, a ludicrously expensive watch, because, he said, he'd always wanted one. But

This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... the inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the world.

After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared.