Consumption Quotes - Page 24

• But public works, economic protectionism, cheap money, "deficit-financed government spending," and "the animal spirits of the spendthrift in the service of boosting "consumption demand"... Doesn't Keynesianism simply appeal to the worst in human nature?

  Ilana Mercer

  Animal, Government, Demand

  "John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?!". Interview with Benn Steil, www.ilanamercer.com. August 16, 2013.

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• Unless we do change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel-cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice. A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Work, Thinking, Squirrels

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• Whatever laudable qualities the English may possess in their selection, preparation, and consumption of food, elegance, originality, diversity, and imagination are not among them.

  Mary Ellen Chase

  Diversity, Imagination, Preparation

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• Many governments are giving subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption that encourage greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as they are spending on projects to promote clean energy. This is a wasteful use of scarce budget resources.

  Jose Angel Gurria

  Government, Giving, Fossils

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• consumption can be very harmful to the world. I'm not a big proponent of the idea that consumption makes you morally bad, but there are consequences to our acts, and those consequences are environmental degradation and the huge social inequalities that make our standard of living in the United States possible.

  Judith Levine

  Ideas, Environmental, Degradation

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• Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not . . . ”—Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear—“. . . when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing.

  Erykah Badu

  Confusing, Together, Males

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• I think so much of neoliberalism and capitalism has caused people to live in a state of greed, fear and consumption that is covering up so much of what we really want.

  Eve Ensler

  Thinking, People, Greed

  "Avocados and Vaginas". Interview with Joe Saxon, www.thestateofthearts.co.uk. May 16, 2015.

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• I suppose fear is like a drug. A little bit isn't that bad, but you can get addicted to the consumption and distribution of it.

  Stephen Colbert

  Drug, Littles, Distribution

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• The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what merchant, what laborer ever sees a tax gatherer of the United States?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pride, Luxury, Comfort

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• Let not the titles of consanguinity betray you into a prejudicial trust; no blood being apter to raise a fever, or cause a consumption sooner in your poor estate, than that which is nearest your own.

  Frances Osborne

  Trust, Blood, Titles

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• I think you keep two sets of books. In one set, you record the truth -- how well you are really doing. This is the secret set -- just for you and loved ones. In the other set are more modest entries and statements, and these are for public consumption!

  Helen Gurley Brown

  Book, Thinking, Two

  Helen Gurley Brown (2000). “I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts”, p.113, Macmillan

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• The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves . . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Sacrifice, Self, Shrines

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• I made songs really for myself - I didn't ever expect to put it out there and make this a record for mass consumption, this was really just a way for me to get out of my own situation and reclaim that part of myself - so when making the songs, I wanted a testament to what I'd gone through, I wanted a snapshot of those moments.

  Frank Iero

  Song, Gone, Snapshots

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• From a Buddhist point of view, this is standing the truth on its head by considering goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity. It means shifting the emphasis from the worker to the product of work, that is, from the human to the sub-human, surrender to the forces of evil.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Buddhist, Mean, Views

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

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• Here's how I see obesity: as a symptom. The larger problem is over-consumption. In a society that identifies consumption with patriotism, valorizes 'growth' above all else and assigns status according to how much you consume, we compete with each other to see who can consume the most.

  Emily Levine

  Growth, Problem, Obesity

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• Our society is turning toward more and more needless consumption. It is a vicious circle that I compare to cancer . . . . Should we eliminate suffering, diseases? The idea is beautiful, but perhaps not a benefit for the long term. We should not allow our dread of diseases to endanger the future of our species. . . . In order to stabilize world population, we need to eliminate 350,000 people a day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Beautiful, Cancer, Order

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• Having taught economics courses at private vocational schools and universities, I have always had a problem with GNP as a yardstick of prosperity. GNP is improved by increases in questionable activities such as consumption of cigarettes and the production of weapons. Moreover, a substantial increase in car accidents will favorably affect GNP because more funerals, hospital visits, car repairs, and new car purchases will result.

  Ernie J Zelinski

  Business, School, Car

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• The opposite of consumption is not thrift - it is generosity.

  Raj Patel

  Opposites, Generosity, Thrift

  Raj Patel (2009). “The Value Of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy”, p.29, Granta

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• Hollywood has gone from the capital of conspicuous consumption to the cutting edge of conspicuous conservation.

  Arianna Huffington

  Cutting, Hollywood, Gone

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• Casein [the main protein found in dairy], in fact, is the most 'relevant' chemical carcinogen ever identified; its cancer-producin g effects occur in animals at consumption levels close to normal-striking ly unlike cancer-causing environmental chemicals that are fed to lab animals at a few hundred or even a few thousand times their normal levels of consumption.

  T. Colin Campbell

  Cancer, Animal, Environmental

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• I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.

  Yasmin Mogahed

  Fashion, Character, Heart

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• And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.

  George Orwell

  Dog, Book, Reading

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: Smothered under journalism, 1946”

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• Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America’s pride-just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation.

  Ayn Rand

  Religious, Children, Holiday

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