Quotes about Consumption

This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close knit communities, and our faith in God , too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption .

But spirituality in many Christian circles has simply become another dimension of Christian consumerism. We have generated a body of people who consume Christian services and think that that is Christian faith. Consumption of Christian services replaces obedience to Christ. And spirituality is one more thing to consume. I go to many, many conferences and talk about these things, and so often I see these people who are just consuming more Christian services.

"In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has."

Do we, for instance, carry on our work in our nest or do we only reside and get our mail there? Is our nest a place of consumption only or is it also a place of production?

The idea was that when faced with abundance one should consume abundantly — an idea that has survived to become the basis of our present economy. It is neither natural nor civilized, and even from a 'practical' point of view it is to the last degree brutalizing and stupid.

We have, in fact, been turning our country into an economy as fast as possible, and we have been doing so by an unaccounted squandering of its actual, its natural and its cultural, wealth.

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

We live in a disposable, 'cast-off and throw-away' society that has largely lost any real sense of permanence. Ours is a world of expiration dates, limited shelf life, and planned obsolescence. Nothing is absolute.

When the average American says, "I'm starving," it is a prelude to a midnight raid on a well-stocked refrigerator or a sudden trip to the nearest fast food restaurant.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

our material riches unfortunately imply a spiritual, cultural, and moral poverty that are perhaps far greater than we see.