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Obsolescence Quotes

Browse 58 quotes about Obsolescence.

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Planned Obsolescence

Obsolescence Quotes

“The people who think of themselves as White have the choice of becoming human or irrelevant. Or--as they are, indeed, already, in all but actual fact: obsolete. For, if trouble don't last always, as the Preacher tells us, neither does Power, and it is on the fact or the hope or the myth of Power that that identity which calls itself White has always seemed to depend.”

RacePowerRacismAfrican AmericansRelevanceRace RelationsWhitesObsolescence
Book:Notes of a Native Son
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“The frequent use of any word in this manner brings it insensibly to have all the effect of the proper term whose place it was intended to supply: no sooner is this effect produced by it, than the same principle that influenced us at first to employ it operates with equal strength in influencing us to lay it aside, and in its stead to adopt something newer and still more remote.”

LanguageObsolescence
Book:The Philosophy of Rhetoric
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“The sumptuous age of stars and images is reduced to a few artificial tornado effects, pathetic fake buildings, and childish tricks which the crowd pretends to be taken in by to avoid feeling too disappointed. Ghost towns, ghost people. The whole place has the same air of obsolescence about it as Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard.”

PeopleWholeFeelingsAgeStarsTakenAirEffectsBuildingHollywoodTownsCrowdsTricksGhostFakeSunsetDisappointedArtificialPatheticTornadoesBoulevardObsolescenceSumptuousGhost Town
Book:Mass Identity Architecture: Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard
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“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 built-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.”

MeanEndsTurnsGoalWealthEconomyFashionIndustryBuiltMachinesProductionsScalesGoodsLeisureDevotedConsumptionReplacedExpansionOutputObsolescence
Book:THE CITY IN HISTORY
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“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.”

HumansArtistOrderClearEconomicModernEffectsActivityProjectsEnlightenmentConceptsBuiltLaborAimEndureSakeProductionsPostsCyclesConsumptionConsumerismHuman SocietyOverconsumptionHuman ActivityUnendingCraftsmanObsolescenceEconomic Order
Author:Lesslie Newbigin
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“The more subtle thing is more speculative. The world is well past its long-term carrying capacity for human beings living a European, much less an American, lifestyle predicated on planned obsolescence. International economic growth is largely a matter of accelerated movement of materials from mines and forests to the dump. Instead of saving and buying decent furniture we can pass on to our children, we charge our credit cards for shaped heaps of sawdust and glue that fall apart in less than three or four years.”

WorldYearsHumansWellsChildrenLongMatterPastFallThreeGrowthTermHuman BeingsFourEconomicMovementMinesMaterialsCapacityOur ChildrenInternationalCreditLifestyleForestsCardsSavingLong TermDecentBuyingSubtleFour YearsFalling ApartFurnitureEconomic GrowthCredit CardDumpGlueObsolescenceSawdustPlanned Obsolescence
Author:Denis Hayes
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“Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed souffles and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are.”

WorldPersonsArtBookHappensFallUniverseThreeNextBlackWaterKnowingPaintingHairEmpathyStandingFalling In LoveGuitarHeavySeedsPhysicsHolesKneesToneMuseumsWeekendPlasticImpossibilityVikingsBrassStockingsEarringsBathtubsEmeraldsObsolescenceDriftwoodSouffleNot Falling In LoveHardwoodSkinned Knees
Author:Jonathan Safran Foer
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“In many ways, constancy is an illusion. After all, our ancestors were immigrants, many of them moving on every few years; today we are migrants in time. Unless teachers can hold up a model of lifelong learning and adaptation, graduates are likely to find themselves trapped into obsolescence as the world changes around them. Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.”

WorldWayLifeYearsWellsTodayMovingAsksTeacherGoes OnModelsIllusionImmigrantsGraduatesAncestorTrappedStoppingAdaptationLifelongGood PlaceConstancyMigrantsLifelong LearningObsolescencePlace In Life
Book:Composing a Life
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“We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us.”

WorldWayPoliticalValuesLanguageSocialCitiesPolicyHealthWasteResourcesChaosAcquireGoodsModernityChaoticSocial SystemsDetrimentalOutdatedGoods And ServicesFuturistObsolescence
Author:Jacque Fresco
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