395 Quotes About Consumerism

My grandmother has hundreds of axioms. One of them was 'If you think you want something, wait a month.' One of three things will happen if you follow this sage advice. One: You will forget. Two: You will no longer need it. Or three: You will need it more. Most often numbers one and two will happen.

Deciding we won't drive to that chain grocery store and buy that imported pineapple is a path to liberation. Deciding to walk to the farmers' market and buy fresh, local peas is like spitting in the eye of the industries that control us. Every act of refusal is also an act of assent. Every time we way no to consumer culture, we say yes to something more beautiful and sustaining. Life is not something we go through or that happens to us; it's something we create by our own decisions.

No man is rich who shakes and groansConvinced that he needs more.

America's great talent, I think, is to generate desires that would never have occurred, natively,... and to make those desires so painfully real that money becomes a fiction, an imaginary means to some concrete end.

Just because everyone CAN publish a book these days, doesn't mean everyone SHOULD. The world doesn't need 1000 knock-offs of 50 Shades of Grey. I'm not so sure the world even needed ONE 50 Shades of Grey.

You feel strangely empowered when you realize that most of what you're told matters, only matters to those trying to sell you shit.

...when you own a lot of rubbish, it's tough to simplify your life.

It dawned on me that my world was defined by accumulation, by the gratification of acquiring things, of seeing numbers go up and up again.

Become a very cautious consumer scrutinizing everything that you allow into your mind and body.