Philip Slater Quotes

• Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they’ll have jobs and get enough money to buy things.

  Philip Slater

  Jobs, Buying Things, People

  Philip Slater (2016). “The Pursuit of Loneliness: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, p.182, Beacon Press

  48 Copy quote

• Every apathetic individual is a brick in a tyrant's throne.

  Philip Slater

  Tyrants, Thrones, Bricks

  15 Copy quote

• Despair ... is the only cure for illusion. Without despair we cannot transfer our allegiance to reality - it's a kind of mourning period for our fantasies. Some people do not survive this despair, but no major change within a person can occur without it.

  Philip Slater

  Reality, People, Mourning

  Philip Slater (1974). “Earth-walk”

  22 Copy quote

• It is a mistake - as so many over-centralized socialist societies have discovered - to try to eliminate money as an incentive. Money is one incentive among many, and has its place. But to put no limits on the impulse to accumulate money obsessively is as destructive as to place no limits on the impulse to commit violence. A viable democratic society needs a ceiling and a floor with regard to the distribution of wealth and assets.

  Philip Slater

  Mistake, Trying, Ceilings

  13 Copy quote

• One of the main reasons wealth makes people unhappy is that it gives them too much control over what they experience. They try to translate their own fantasies into reality instead of tasting what reality itself has to offer.

  Philip Slater

  Reality, People, Giving

  Philip Elliot Slater (1980). “Wealth Addiction”, Dutton Adult

  8 Copy quote

• A coincidence is a trend we have decided not to take seriously.

  Philip Slater

  Trends, Coincidence, Decided

  Philip Elliot Slater (1977). “The wayward gate: science and the supernatural”

  15 Copy quote

• Most of us would like to end our lives feeling both that we had a good time and that we left the world a little better than we found it.

  Philip Slater

  Change, Passion, Feelings

  Philip Elliot Slater (1991). “A Dream Deferred: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, Beacon Pr

  14 Copy quote

• The rule in our society is that while those who kill once make wretched a single person are severely punished, those (heads of state, inventors, manufacturers) who are responsible for the death, mutilation or general wretchedness of thousands or millions are rewarded with fame, riches and prizes... If you are going to rob, rob big; if you're going to kill, kill big.

  Philip Slater

  Politics, Our Society, Riches

  Philip Slater (2016). “The Pursuit of Loneliness: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, p.142, Beacon Press

  7 Copy quote

• We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it.

  Philip Slater

  Lonely, Privacy, Feels

  Philip Slater (2016). “The Pursuit of Loneliness: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, p.29, Beacon Press

  6 Copy quote

• Every time we buy something we deepen our emotional deprivation and hence our need to buy something.

  Philip Slater

  Emotional, Needs, Deprivation

  Philip Slater (2016). “The Pursuit of Loneliness: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, p.120, Beacon Press

  8 Copy quote

• If we define pornography as any message from any communication medium that is intended to arouse sexual excitement, then it is clear that most advertisements are covertly pornographic.

  Philip Slater

  Communication, Messages, Excitement

  11 Copy quote

• A true community maximizes the potential of whatever human resources exist within it (by allowing for all possible combinations), while networks minimize such utilization, since it's limited by each individual's capacity to absorb unsettling stimuli (new combinations).

  Philip Slater

  Community, Individual, Capacity

  4 Copy quote

• Motors make noise and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure - nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible noises - why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect? Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served to express some impulse of the owner.

  Philip Slater

  Attitude, Successful, Feelings

  8 Copy quote

• Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.

  Philip Slater

  Needs, Lasts, Problem

  "The Joys of Technology: Burying Ourselves in Capabilities" by Philip Slater, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 3, 2007.

  10 Copy quote

• At a conservative estimate, there are probably a million men and women in their twenties and thirties who would happily work long hours doing what most needs to be done, if they were paid something for it.

  Philip Slater

  Men, Long, Twenties

  7 Copy quote

• People can bear anything.

  Philip Slater

  People, Bears

  Philip Slater (2016). “The Pursuit of Loneliness: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal”, p.133, Beacon Press

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Warren G. Bennis

Peter Drucker

Edgar Schein

John P. Kotter

James MacGregor Burns

Tom Peters

John C. Maxwell

Ken Blanchard