Quotes About Materialism

Yet she resigned herself: reverently she put away in the chest of drawers her beautiful dress and even her satin shoes, whose soles had been yellowed by the slippery wax of the dance floor. Her heart was like them: contact with wealth had laid something over it that would not be wiped away.

A los ídolos no hay que tocarlos: se queda el dorado en las manos.

Argent. Cause de tout le mal.

One must not touch idols; the gilt rubs off on one's hands.

We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers. They

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ainsi ? demande le vieux poète Norbert de Varenne à Georges Duroy. C'est que nous étions nés sans doute pour vivre d'avantage selon la matière et moins selon l'esprit ; mais, à force de penser, une disproportion s'est faite entre l'état de notre intelligence agrandie et les conditions immuables de notre vie.

She removed the wraps, which covered her shoulders, before the glass, so as once more to see herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She had no longer the necklace around her neck!

Pentru ce suferim astfel? Pentru c? am fost ,f?r? îndoial? n?scuÈ›i s? tr?im mai mult prin materie decât prin spirit, dar gândind mereu ,s-a n?scut o nepotrivire între gradul inteligenÈ›ei noastre m?rite È™i împrejur?rile cu neputin?? de schimbat ale vieÈ›ii noaste.

Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry.

She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made for that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at her reflection in the mirror.

The spectacle cannot be understood as an abuse of the world of vision, as a product of the techniques of mass dissemination of images. It is, rather, a Weltanschauung which has become actual, materially translated. It is a world vision which has become objectified. 6. The spectacle grasped in its totality is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It is not a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society.

Le spectacle est la reconstruction matérielle de l'illusion religieuse.

The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws.

Dont tout «avoir» effectif doit tirer son prestige immédiat et sa fonction dernière.

The present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having into appearing, from which all actual "having" must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function.

Con la massa degli oggetti cresce ... il regno degli enti estranei a cui l'uomo è soggiogato. E' lo stadio supremo di un'espansione che ha ritorto il bisogno contro la vita. Il bisogno di denaro è quindi l'unico bisogno prodotto dall'economia politica, e il solo che esso produca.

Les force qu'elle a déchaînées suppriment la nécessité economique qui a été la base immuable des sociétés anciennes. Quand elle la remplace par la nécessité du développement economique infini, elle ne peut que remplacer la satisfatction des premiers besoins humains sommairement reconnus, par une fabrication ininterrompue de pseudo-besoins qui se ramènent au seul pseudo-besoin du maintien de son règne.

Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it.

The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle's estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual's gestures are no longer his own.

Within spectacular society today there is a 'holy trinity' of such roles: consumer, manager and shareholder.

Utiliza métodos intrínsecos «Estoy harto de oír hablar de dinero, dinero, siempre dinero. Yo sólo quiero jugar, tomar Pepsi, llevar Reebok.» Shaquille O'Neal

Los hombres de más amplio intelecto saben que no existe una verdadera distinción entre lo real y lo irreal; que todas las cosas aparecen tal como son tan solo en virtud de los frágiles sentidos físicos y mentales mediante los que las percibimos; pero el prosaico materialismo de la mayoría tacha de locuras a los destellos de clarividencia que traspasan el vulgar velo del empirismo chabacano.