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Overconsumption Quotes

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Overconsumption Quotes

“In the developing world, the problem of population is seen less as a matter of human numbers than of western overconsumption. Yet within the development community, the only solution to the problems of the developing world is to export the same unsustainable economic model feeling the overconsumption of the West.”

DevelopmentOverconsumptionDeveloping WorldDeveloped World
Book:Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot
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“Let’s not fall into the trap of conventions and habits and convince ourselves that the way we are consuming now is next to impossible to alter because of regulated options, economic limitations, cultural norms, accessibility, or whichever excuse we come up with. Let’s remember that just as it is momentarily the norm to mindlessly shop and consume, it could easily become the new norm not to; to radically reduce one’s consumption and to focus on the usage and aesthetic nourishment of the objects one owns and invests in. Something being the norm doesn’t mean that it is carved in stone. Norms are changeable. Not easily changeable, but nevertheless changeable. Cherishing, mending, and repairing one’s belongings could become the new normal.”

ConventionsConsumptionOverconsumptionCulture QuotesMendingRepairingNormsSustainability Quotes
Book:Anti-trend, Resilient Design and the Art of Sustainable Living
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“We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and to thereby know that there is a reason for us. We seek to be told we are good because we're too unsure of ourselves to know. Yet often we remain so focused on our neediness that we forget the creatures—human and otherwise—we're drawing into the vortex of our own passion play. All of us have compulsive loves we must forbear. We forget to see that we can engage the world without harming it. And although we fish for approval, the challenge is: to capture our prizes while bringing more to the world than we take.”

NatureGreedAffirmationOverconsumptionNeediness
Book:The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
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“...the tragedy of consumerism: one acquires more and more things without taking the time to ever see and know them, and thus one never truly enjoys them. One has without truly having. The consumer is right-there is pleasure to be had in good things, a sacred and almost unspeakable pleasure, but the consumer wrongly thinks that one finds this pleasure by having more and more possessions instead of possessing them more truly through grateful contemplation. And here we are, living in an economy that perpetuates this tragedy.”

ThinkingKnowsEnjoyPleasureEconomyTragedyGratefulSacredGood ThingsPossessionConsumersContemplationAcquireConsumerismPossessingOverconsumptionUnspeakable
Author:Brian D. McLaren
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“American culture is no longer created by the people... A free, authentic life is no longer possible in AmericaTM today. We are being manipulated in the most insidious way. Our emotions, personalities and core values are under siege from media and cultural forces too complex to decode. A continuous product message has woven itself into the very fabric of our existence. Most North Americans now live designer lives-sleep, eat, sit in car, work, shop, watch TV, sleep again. I doubt there's more than a handful of free, spontaneous minutes anywhere in that cycle. We ourselves have been branded.”

PeopleWayHas BeensTodayLife IsValuesCultureForceSleepEmotionExistenceWatchesDoubtMinutesMediaCarTvsProductsPersonalityMessagesComplexesCoreDesignerShopsCyclesFabricConsumerismSpontaneousHandfulAmerican CultureWovenOverconsumptionInsidiousCore ValuesSiegeBrandedAuthentic LifeUnder Siege
Author:Kalle Lasn
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“Advertisers regularly con us into believing that we genuinely need one luxury after another. We are convinced that we must keep up with or even go one better than our neighbors. So we buy another dress, sports jacket or sports car and thereby force up the standard of living. The ever more affluent standard of living is the god of twentieth century North America and the adman is its prophet.”

NeedsBelieveAmericaForceSportsCenturyCarStandardsDressesConvincedNeighborLuxuryProphetConsumerismTwentieth CenturyJacketsOverconsumptionNorth AmericaStandards Of LivingAffluentAdvertisersSports Cars
Book:Rich Christians in an age of hunger: a Biblical study
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“Advertising tries to stimulate our sensuous desires, converting luxuries into necessities, but it only intensifies man's inner misery. The business world is bent on creating hungers which its wares never satisfy, and thus it adds to the frustrations and broken minds of our times.”

MenWorldTryingMindDesireBrokenCreatingAddMiseryHungerAdvertisingLuxuryOur TimeFrustrationIntensityConsumerismBentOverconsumptionStimulationConvertingBusiness WorldSensuous
Author:Fulton J. Sheen
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“All of us experience the sad effects of blind submission to consumerism. In the first place it represents crass materialism. At the same time it represents a radical dissatisfaction because one quickly learns that the more one possesses, the more one wants, while deeper aspirations remain unsatisfied and perhaps even stifled.”

WantFirstsEffectsBlindDeeperRadicalAspirationMaterialismConsumerismSubmissionDissatisfactionOverconsumptionUnsatisfiedCrass
Author:Pope John Paul II
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“As businessmen caught a glimpse of the potentialities inherent in endlessly expanding the wants of people under consumerism, forced draft or otherwise, many began to see blue skies... What was needed was strategies that would make Americans in large numbers into voracious, wasteful, compulsive consumers-and strategies that would provide products assuring such wastefulness. Even where wastefulness was not involved, additional strategies were needed that would induce the public to consume at ever-higher levels.”

PeopleWantLevelsNumbersSkyProductsNeededHigherInvolvedBlueStrategyCaughtConsumersInherentConsumerismBusinessmanGlimpseExpandingLarge NumbersHigher LevelOverconsumptionBlue SkyWastefulness
Author:Vance Packard
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“At a certain fork in the road of automatization, Europeans chose to have more time, and they work far less than we do and get much longer vacations. We chose to have more stuff, the stuff sold to us through those beckoning adjectives-bigger, better, faster: Jet Skis, extra cars, second homes, motor homes, towering slab TVs, if not the time to enjoy them or to enjoy less commodified pleasures.”

IfsHomeCertainStuffEnjoyPleasureCarTvsBiggerFasterExtrasMore TimeVacationConsumerismMotorJetForksOverconsumptionAdjectivesSkisBeckoningFork In The RoadSlabsBigger Better
Author:Rebecca Solnit
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“But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then.”

KnowsMenLittlesEnoughActionDesirePowerfulRichInstitutionsPropertyInstinctAverageMotiveConsumerismPersistentPrivate LifePrivate PropertyOverconsumptionPlunderAverage ManHoardingSatiety
Book:Outspoken essays
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“Day by day night after night Blinded by the neon lights Hurry here, hustlin' there No one's got the time to spare Money's tight, nothin' free Won't somebody come and rescue me? I am stranded, caught in the crossfire Stranded, caught in the crossfire! Tooth for tooth, eye for an eye Sell your soul just to buy, buy, buy Beggin' a dollar stealin' a dime Come on can't you see that I I am stranded, caught in the crossfire”

SoulLightEyeNightSellsDollarsCaughtTeethYour SoulRescueConsumerismSparesBlindedDimesOverconsumptionNeonStrandedEye For An EyeRescue MeCrossfireDay NightNeon Lights
Author:Stevie Ray Vaughan
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“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.”

HumansMeanUseCommonEconomyShareEconomicWasteResourcesResponsibleDefinitionsConsumersDamageAppropriateGoodsLionsConsumerismEconomistDictionaryOverconsumptionOxford
Author:Alan Thein Durning
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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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“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.”

HumansMeanUsedCultureHuman BeingsOppressionConsumersSomething NewGoodsExploitationConsumerismFringeExclusionOutcastExcludedOverconsumptionDiscardedDisposableLeftoversDisenfranchised
Author:Pope Francis
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“In a consumer society, expectations dare not plateau, because a growing economy depends on rising expectations... The more we let our level of contentment be determined by outside factors-a new car, fashionable clothes, a prestigious career, social status-the more we relinquish control over our own happiness.”

SocialLevelsCareersEconomyGrowingCarDependsClothesExpectationsDareDeterminedFactorsConsumersRisingContentmentConsumerismFashionableOverconsumptionNew CarSocial StatusPrestigiousGrowing EconomyFashionable Clothes
Author:Paul Brand
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“Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others.”

WantMadeRealReasonEvilWishMiseryPossessionAbsenceUnhappyFancyConsumerismGratificationOverconsumption
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius
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“Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.”

WantNeedsGivingNamesNationsCausesPoorPovertyOriginalsPlentyMannersCivilizedCustomsConsumerismOverconsumptionOpulenceCivilized Nations
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
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“Roughly two billion people participate in the money economy, with less than half of those living in the wealthy countries of the developed world. These affluent 800 million, however, account for more than 75 percent of the world's energy and resource consumption, and also create the bulk of its industrial, toxic, and consumer waste.”

PeopleWorldTwoCountryEnergyHalfMillionsEconomyWastePercentResourcesAccountsBillionsConsumersWealthyToxicConsumptionConsumerismOverconsumptionAffluent
Author:Stuart L. Hart
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“Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy. We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day's supply of food and raiment; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveller, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden. Enough is not only as good as a feast, but is all that the greatest glutton can truly enjoy. This is all that we should expect; a craving for more than this is ungrateful. When our Father does not give us more, we should be content with his daily allowance.”

GivingShouldDoeEnoughCareFatherEnjoyDrinkAnxietyBurdenHeavyAidsSufficientThievesStaffConsumerismCravingOur FatherTravellerOverconsumptionUngratefulSurplusBundlesAllowanceHeavy Burdens
Book:Morning and Evening
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“That the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily created; every man, in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless instruments and conveniencies, of which, while he did not know them, he never felt the need; and yet, when use has made them familiar, wonders how life could be supported without them. Thus it comes to pass, that our desires always increase with our possessions; the knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.”

KnowsMenWantNeedsMayMadeStillsUseDesireFeltWonderIncreaseInstrumentsRemainsPossessionLondonEvery ManFamiliarEnjoymentShopsImperfectConsumerismOverconsumption
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer and Idler
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“The money economy thus leaves a large ecological footprint, defined as the amount of land and resources required to meet a typical consumer's needs. For example, with only about 4% of the world's population, the United States, the largest money economy, consumes in excess of one-quarter of the world's energy and materials and generates in excess of 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.”

WorldNeedsStatesEnergyUnitedUnited StatesEconomyLandExampleMaterialsAmountPercentResourcesPopulationDefinedConsumersGasQuartersExcessConsumerismTypicalEmissionsEcologicalFootprintOverconsumptionGreenhousesGreenhouse GasesEcological Footprints
Author:Stuart L. Hart
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“To me, an economy that sees the life of a community or a place as expendable, and reckons its value only in terms of money, is not acceptable because it is not realistic. I am thinking as I believe we must think if we wish to discuss the best uses of people, places, and things, and if we wish to give affection some standing in our thoughts.”

PeopleIfsThinkingGivingBelieveUseValuesI BelieveWishTermCommunityEconomyStandingAffectionRealisticAcceptableConsumerismOur ThoughtsOverconsumptionExpendables
Book:What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth
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