#Consumerism Quotes

“Our expenses are all for conformity.”

“But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.”

“American invents everything, but the trouble is we get tired of it the minute the new is wore off.”

“Our country has plenty of five-cent cigars, but the trouble is they charge fifteen cents for them.”

“We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poorhouse in an automobile.”

“Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.”

“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.”

“Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic situation? We spent six years of wild buying on credit - everything under the sun, whether we needed it or not - and now we are having to pay for 'em, and we are howling like a pet coon.”

“A Realtor is an old fashioned Real Estate man with a neck tie. A Real Estate man sold you what you wanted, a Realtor sells you what you don't need. A Real Estate man showed you what you could raise on the land, a Realtor tells you what you can build on it.”

“We have been just going like a house afire, and we couldent see any reason why we shouldent keep right on burning. Our tastes were acquired on credit, and we wanted to keep on enjoying 'em on credit.”

“Politics are receiving a lot of attention because we have nothing else to interest us. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problem whatever, except perhaps some day to have to pay for them. But we are certainly not thinking about that this early.”

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.”

“We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We're inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, 'Gimme, gimme, gimme,' you will always be in short supply.”

“At the end of the day, the question to ask yourself is this: do your expenses, big and small, bring you the thrill they once did?”

“The case wouldn't be overweight if you didn't have so many shoes. How many do you really need? This pair, for example, I swear you never even wore them.”

“What is called 'capitalism' might more accurately be called consumerism. It is the consumers who call the tune, and those capitalists who want to remain capitalists have to learn to dance to it.”

“Why buy a product that it takes 2000 flushes to get rid of?”

“If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?”

“I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may.”

“You know, you keep on innovating, you keep on making better stuff. And if you always want the latest and greatest, then you have to buy a new iPod at least once a year.”

“There are sneakers that cost more than an iPod.”

“When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.”

“I end up not buying a lot of things, because I find them ridiculous.”

“People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.”

“I buy everything from CostCo. It's great; they've got everything I need.”

“The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn't order any credit cards! We don't spend what we don't have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”

“The American success formula is first to get a home of your own, then to get a car of your own so you don't have to stay in that home of your own.”

“Never buy anything simply because it is expensive.”

“Are you better off than you were four years ago? One of my favorite quotes Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores ... Is there more or less unemployment?”

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”

“We used to be hunter-gatherers, now we're shopper-borrowers.”

“Never buy a thing you don't want merely because it is dear.”

“I rationalize shop. I buy a dress because I need change for gum.”

“While I do occasionally order items on the Internet, it's hard to teach an old shopper new tricks. I'm convinced that the catalogue will eventually disappear, but not until the last baby boomers have kicked off their smelly Nikes and been buried in mulch.”

“Impulse buying is not macho. Men rarely call the Home Shopping Network.”

“Everyone has a telephone. Whether they can afford it or not. It's one of those things that people have, regardless of their income.”

“Young wives are the leading asset of corporate power. They want the suburbs, a house, a settled life, and respectability. They want society to see that they have exchanged themselves for something of value.”

“As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.”

“I have damaged my intellect trying to imagine why a man should want to invent a repeating clock, and how another man could be found to lust after it and buy it. The man who can guess these riddles is far on the way to guess why the human race was invented - which is another riddle which tires me.”

“I had a box of Ritz crackers, and on the back of the box, they had all these suggestions for what to put on top of the Ritz. Try it with cheese. Try it with peanut butter. Come on, man, they're crackers, that's why I got them. I like crackers! I didn't buy them because they're little edible plates!”

“Pepperidge Farm bread. That's fancy bread. You can tell it's fancy because it's wrapped twice. You open it, and it still isn't open. That's why I don't buy it. I don't need another step between me and toast.”

“XM radio doesn't have commercials, so after about thirty minutes of listening to it, I'm like, "What should I buy?"”

“I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Some one needs to tell the turkey, 'man, just be yourself.'”

“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.”

“They take great pride in making their dinner cost much; I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little.”

“Every McDonald's commercial ends the same way: Prices and participation may vary. I wanna open a McDonald's and not participate in anything. I wanna be a stubborn McDonald's owner. "Cheeseburgers?" "Nope! We got spaghetti, and blankets."”

“They could take sesame seeds off the market and I wouldn't even care. I can't imagine 5 years from now saying, "Remember sesame seeds? What happened? All the buns are blank!"”

“When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him... a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

“There are two reasons why anybody buys anything. The real reason, and the reason they give you.”

“It was our love of foreign cloth that ousted the wheel from its position of dignity.”