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Quote by Alan Thein Durning

“Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources.”

Quote by Alan Thein Durning

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Alan Thein Durning
Alan Thein Durning

Alan Thein Durning is a renowned author born in 1964. His work focuses on environmental issues, social justice, and sustainable development. more

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“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony”

IfsMenLongDesireWishPoorEnemyTeachRichQuietPossessionEvery ManEnjoymentProportionDestructiveConsumerismOverconsumptionRich Or PoorEnlargementPatrimony
Book:Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius
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“For they (capitalists) hold as their chief heresy, in a coarser form, the fundamental falsehood that things are not made to be used but made to be sold. All the collapse of their commercial system in their own time has been due to that fallacy of forcing things on a market where there was no market; of continually increasing the power of supply without increasing the power of demand; of briefly, of always considering the man who sells the potato and never considering the man who eats it.”

MenHas BeensMadeFormUsedHe ManDemandFundamentalsSellsDuesChiefsCapitalistCollapseFalsehoodConsumerismConsideringPotatoesHeresyFallacyOverconsumption
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“For why, my brothers and sisters, would you rejoice in silver? Either your silver will perish, or you will, and no one knows which will perish first. For neither can you remain here always, nor can silver remain here always; so also with gold, wardrobes, houses, money, real estate-and in the end, even the light by which we enjoy all these things. So do not be willing then to rejoice in such things as these. Rejoice instead in the light that has no setting; rejoice in the dawn which no yesterday precedes, and no tomorrow follows.”

KnowsFirstsRealEndsLightHouseEnjoyWillingBrotherTomorrowGoldYesterdaySettingSettingsDawnMy BrotherSilverRejoiceConsumerismEstatesBrothers And SistersWardrobeOverconsumption
Author:Saint Augustine
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“However destructive may be the policies of the government and the methods and products of the corporations, the root of the problem is always found to be found in private life. We must learn to see that every problem that concerns us as conservationists always leads straight to the question of how we live. The world is being destroyed, no doubt about it, by the greed of the rich and powerful. It is also being destroyed by popular demand.”

WorldMayProblemGovernmentFoundPowerfulRichDoubtPolicyProductsDemandConcernRootsMethodGreedDestroyedCorporationsNo DoubtDestructiveConsumerismPrivate LifeOverconsumption
Book:Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays
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