Overconsumption Quotes

• Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Environmental, Today

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• We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Two, Roots

  75 Copy quote

• Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

  Hippocrates

  Excess, Consumerism

  "Catholic Morality: Selected Sayings and Some Account of Various Religions". Book by E. Comyns Durnford, p. 90, 1915.

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• True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.

  Aristotle

  Happiness, Flow, Virtue

  Aristotle (2012). “Politics”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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• Over-consumption is a cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask the moral questions.

  Richard J. Foster

  Spiritual, Distance, Cancer

  21 Copy quote

• We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

  Winston Churchill

  Sad, Wealth, Consumerism

  Sir Winston Churchill, Jack Fishman (1974). “If I lived my life again”, W.H. Allen

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• Overconsumption is the mother of all environmental problems. For the first time in the history of capitalism, consumption itself has become controversial.

  Kalle Lasn

  Mother, Environmental, Firsts

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• There are two ways to be rich - one in the abundance of your possessions and the other in the fewness of your wants.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Two, Want, Way

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• We over-eat, over-buy, and over-built, spewing out our toxic wastes upon the earth and into the air.

  Richard J. Foster

  Air, Toxic Waste, Earth

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• Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these attitudes cause. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.

  Pope John Paul II

  Attitude, Sacrifice, Discipline

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• In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

  Ivan Illich

  Two, Envy, Addiction

  Tools for Conviviality ch. 3 (1973)

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• Not what you possess but what you do with what you have, determines your true worth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Consumerism, Determine, True Worth

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• It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Greed, Abundance, Produce

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• Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough.

  Saint Basil

  Men, Enough, Consumerism

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• Too much of the world's happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. To increase my standard of living, someone in another part of the world must lower his. The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness. Industrialized nations acquire appetites for more and more luxuries and higher and higher standards of living, and increasing numbers of people are made poor and hungry. It doesn't have to be that way.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Luxury, Numbers, People

  Eugene H. Peterson (2012). “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society”, p.118, InterVarsity Press

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• Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Advice, Liberty, Want

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.402

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• Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

  John Ruskin

  Workout, Simplicity, Consumerism

  The Eagle's Nest ch. 5 (1872)

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• To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.

  George MacDonald

  Power, Contentment, Want

  George MacDonald (1884). “Donal Grant”, p.3, CCEL

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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.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Frustration, Men, Luxury

  68 Copy quote

• He who multiplies riches multiplies cares.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Caring, Care, Riches

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Way to Wealth and Poor Richard's Almanac”, p.23, Nayika Publishing

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• We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependant on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do.

  Wendell Berry

  Thinking, Waste, Obstacles

  Wendell Berry (2010). “What Are People For?: Essays”, p.201, Counterpoint

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• Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Running, Men, Thinking

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• The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time worrying about not having enough.

  Jim Wallis

  People, Worry, World

  Jim Wallis (1981). “The call to conversion”, Harper San Francisco

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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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• What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Joy, Humanity, Desire

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2017). “The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)”, p.746, Clap Publishing, LLC.

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