“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.”
Cf. LOOK Magazine 1957: Actor Walter Slezak's version of "keeping up with the Joneses": "Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like." p. 10 books.google http://books.google.com/books?id=-NERAQAAMAAJ&q=slezak.
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Will Smith 8
American actor, film producer and rapper 1968Related quotes
“Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like.”
Quoted as "Actor Walter Slezak's version of "keeping up with the Joneses"": in LOOK magazine, Vol. 21 number 14 (July 9, 1957) p. 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=-NERAQAAMAAJ&q=%22impress+people%22, in LOOK's permanent category of quotes "WHAT THEY ARE SAYING".
Already in 1905 W.T. O'Connor had stated that advertising was "The gentle art of persuading the public to believe that they want something they don't need" in "Advertising Definitions", in Ad Sense, Vol. 19, No. 2 (August 1905), p. 121 http://books.google.com/books?id=zPRKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22W.+T.+O%27CONNOR%22, and in 1931 one finds Will Rogers being quoted with advertising "as something that makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want." But this complete statement with the finale "to impress people you don't like" seems to have originated with Slezak. However, Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/21/impress/ instead traces the quotation back to American humorist Robert Quillen, who wrote in 1928: "Americanism: Using money you haven't earned to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like."
“We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.”
Source: The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
Paragraphs by Robert Quillen, Detroit Free Press, 4 June 1928. (via Newspapers.com)
"The Great Disruption", In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 17 Jun 1999, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545kh
“advertising […] makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want.”
As the Connecticut Yankee Hank Morgan / Sir Boss in the 1931 film A Connecticut Yankee (after Mark Twain). Cf. Ivan G. Shreve Jr: Thrilling days of yesteryear blogspot.de/2009/09 http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.de/2009/09/grey-market-cinema-connecticut-yankee.html. Also quoted in Printers' Ink magazine, volume 156, issue 1 (1931), p. 3 books.google https://books.google.com/books?id=-oULAQAAIAAJ&q=arthur's and Advertising Outdoors Vol. 2, No. 8 (August 1931), p. 19 https://books.google.com/books?id=rZcXAQAAMAAJ&q=definitions, https://books.google.com/books?id=rZcXAQAAMAAJ&q=spend+money = http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Advertising_Outdoors_1000005193/373
As quoted in ...
In response to the question "What is your opinion on direct democracy, where the citizens themselves make law, rather than elected representatives?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nfaTZNWcI (May 14, 2015)
2015
Metropolis (1908)
Context: I'm going to stop squandering money for things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting invitations, and meeting people I don't like and don't want to know. I've tried your game — I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and I'm going to get out before it's too late. I'm going to find some decent and simple place to live in; and I'm going down town to find out if there isn't some way in New York for a man to earn an honest living!