Home / Quotes / Quote by Joy Davidman

Quote by Joy Davidman

“Can we reasonably expect happiness from an insatiable appetite which, no matter how it stuffs its belly, is still psychologically like Oliver Twist in the poorhouse, holding up an empty bowl and begging, "I want some more"? Isn't it possible that our dream of the good society contained, from the beginning, a hidden violation of the Tenth Commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"?”

Quote by Joy Davidman

Book:Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments

Work

Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments

Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments delves into the origins and meanings of the Ten Commandments, providing a scholarly examination of their impact on religious and cultural thought. The book examines the commandments from various perspectives, including historical, theological, and philosophical, offering readers a comprehensive understanding of their enduring relevance. more

Author

Joy Davidman, a British poet, was born on April 18, 1915, and passed away on July 13, 1960. Her poetry is known for its unique style and profound emotion, and is widely regarded as an important voice in 20th-century British literature. more

You May Also Like

“Consumer sales depend on the habits and behaviors of consumers, and those who manipulate consumer markets cannot but address behavior and attitude. That is presumably the object of the multibillion-dollar global advertising industry. Tea drinkers are improbable prospects for Coke sales.”

Source: Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy

“If we were built, what were we built for? ... Why do we have this amazing collection of sinews, senses, and sensibilities? Were we really designed in order to recline on the couch, extending our wrists perpendicular to the floor so we can flick through the television's offerings? Were we really designed in order to shop some more so the economy can grow some more? Or were we designed to experience the great epiphanies that come from contact with each other and with the natural world?”

Ifs World Order Grows Natural Economy Television Built Senses Contact Collections Shops Offering Sensibility Consumerism Natural World Couches Wrists Epiphany Overconsumption Extending

Author:Bill McKibben

“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.”

“In this state of total consumerism-which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves-all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”

People Thinking Ideas States Earth Term Broken Offers Forgotten Meaningful Contact Motive Consumerism Helpless Dependence Overconsumption

Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

Source: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

“Man today is fascinated by the possibility of buying, more, better, and especially, new things. He is consumption hungry... To buy the latest gadget, the latest model of anything that is on the market, is the dream of everybody, in comparison to which the real pleasure in use is quite secondary. Modern man, if the dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world.”

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

World Different Known Modern Capitalism Consumerism Overconsumption

Book:Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

Source: Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

“The effect of the post-Enlightenment project for human society is that all human activity is absorbed into labor. It becomes an unending cycle of production for the sake of consumption. The modern concept of "built-in obsolescence" makes this clear. The cycle of production and consumption has to be kept going, and the work of the artist or craftsman who aims to create something enduring becomes marginal to the economic order.”

“Likewise, the world of action, of politics, is reduced to a conflict of views about how to keep the cycle of production and consumption going. Questions of ultimate purpose are excluded from the public world.”

World Action Purpose Views Conflict Ultimate Productions Cycles Consumption Consumerism Excluded Overconsumption

Book:Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

Source: Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture

“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.”

“Too much of the world's happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. To increase my standard of living, someone in another part of the world must lower his. The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness. Industrialized nations acquire appetites for more and more luxuries and higher and higher standards of living, and increasing numbers of people are made poor and hungry. It doesn't have to be that way.”

Source: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society