Consumption Quotes

• Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Courage, Organization, Simplicity

  E.F. Schumacher (1975). “Small is Beautiful”

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• The world has also learned that economic growth, by itself, cannot close the gap between rich and poor.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Growth, World

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• Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.

  Adam Smith

  Purpose, Ends, Sole

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.8.

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• Consumption may be regarded as negative production.

  Alfred Marshall

  Negative, May, Productions

  Alfred Marshall (2010). “Principles of Economics”, p.64, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The model of ownership, in a society organized round mass consumption, is addiction.

  Christopher Lasch

  Addiction, Ownership, Mass Consumption

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• Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Mean, Gentleman, Leisure

  The Theory of the Leisure Class ch. 4 (1899) See Rae 1

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• Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.

  William Shenstone

  Poetry, Disease, Flattering

  William Shenstone (1868). “The Poetical Works of William Shenstone: With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes”, p.18

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• A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, for such a society is a house built upon sand.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Order, House, Waste

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• Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

  Jimmy Carter

  Self, Racism, Gay Marriage

  Energy and the National Goals - A Crisis of Confidence, delivered 15 July, 1979

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• I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Technology, Suffering, Progress

  1921 Speech, 13 Oct.

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• Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.

  Mark Twain

  Real, Intelligent, Others Opinions

  Mark Twain (2015). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.254, Univ of California Press

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• A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns.

  Maurice Strong

  Environmental, Patterns, Lifestyle

  47 Copy quote

• Most of the movies I saw growing up were viewed as totally disposable, fine for quick consumption, but they have survived 50 years and are still growing.

  Manuel Puig

  Growing Up, Years, Saws

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• Americans are making coffee a bigger part of their lives, expanding attitudes and behaviors that are driving new levels of consumption.

  Robert Nelson

  Attitude, Coffee, Levels

  44 Copy quote

• A Big Mac - the communion wafer of consumption.

  John Ralston Saul

  Culture, Bigs, Macs

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Balance, Comeback, Insult

  Raoul Vaneigem, Donald Nicholson-Smith (2012). “The Revolution of Everyday Life”, p.15, PM Press

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• I believe that the average guy in the street will give up a great deal, if he really understands the cost of not giving it up. In fact, we may find that, while we're drastically cutting our energy consumption, we're actually raising our standard of living.

  David R. Brower

  Giving Up, Believe, Cutting

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• The Texas Energy Office's Loan Star Program has reduced building energy consumption and taxpayers' energy costs through the efficient operation of public buildings, saving taxpayers more than $172 million through energy efficiency projects.

  Rosa DeLauro

  Stars, Texas, Office

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• If most American cities are about the consumption of culture, Los Angeles and New York are about the production of culture - not only national culture but global culture.

  Barbara Kruger

  New York, Cities, Culture

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• Nor do we begin to have a clear appreciation of what the increase in consumption of alcoholic beverages in wartime means in increased risk, and in loss of efficiency to the fighting and working forces of the country.

  William Lyon Mackenzie King

  Country, Appreciation, Mean

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• By the immediate preservation of eggs for home consumption through the use of water glass or lime water, larger supplies of fresh eggs may be made available for marketing later in the season, when production is less and prices higher.

  David F. Houston

  Home, Eggs, Glasses

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• And almost half of American oil consumption is for motor vehicles.

  Tim Holden

  Motor Vehicles, Oil, Half

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• Finally, we should help developing nations like China and India curb their exponentially increasing consumption of oil and natural gas, which is driving world prices higher.

  Bobby Jindal

  Oil, India, World

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• Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division.

  Jerry Brown

  Thinking, Media, Patterns

  84 Copy quote

• Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, 4th Of July, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.210, Cosimo, Inc.

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