“For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption.”

about Newport, Rhode Island (RI)
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption." by Bill Bryson?

Bill Bryson112

American author 1951

Related quotes

“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”

Thorstein Veblen book The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 57,

“the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners”

Barbara Kingsolver book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

“(The) pattern of consumption is markedly more equal than in Britain. ‘Prestige-goods’ are widely distributed, and there is less conspicuous contrast between the standard of living of different income-groups. To take the most obvious example, almost every family owns a car; and this is significant not only because a car is the most conspicuous of all consumption goods, but also because universal car-ownership leads to the universal consumption of other conspicuous or semi-luxury goods – holidays, hotels, middle-class habits of shopping, etc. But the lack of external class-distinctions can be observed in many other spheres: e. g. clothes, eating-habits, drug-stores, the ownership of consumer durables, and so on.”

Anthony Crosland book The Future of Socialism

The Future of Socialism by Anthony Crosland.
The Future of Socialism (1956)

“Owning your own racing ship wasn’t even wealth. It was like speciation. It was conspicuous consumption befitting ancient Earth royalty, a pharaoh’s pyramid with a reaction drive.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 30 (p. 330)

“An Afro who gets dragged into Helsinki from an African savannah pollutes no less with his conspicuous consumption than an ethnic Finn. He will probably pollute more because moving from the stone age directly into the modern world deprives him of ecological conscience typical of a western human being.”

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

Jussi Halla-aho (2007), published in the blog Scripta Hyvää kesää! http://web.archive.org/web/20070626154617/http://halla-aho.com/scripta/hyvaa_kesaa.html, June 21, 2007 <br class="br">2005-09

“Modern industrial design is based on the principle of conspicuous economy [but] the bourgeois culture which dominates the Western World is founded… on the principle of conspicuous waste.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Lewis Mumford (1930) Modern American design. R.L. Leonard, & ‎C.A. Glassgold (eds.), ‎American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen. p. 9; As cited in: V.T. Clayton et al. Drawing on America's Past, p. 28

“A reduction of meat consumption by only 10% would result in about 12 million more tons of grain for human consumption. This additional grain could feed all of the humans across the world who starve to death each year- about 60 million people!”

Marc Bekoff (1945) American biologist

Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

“Three years after the CCTV headquarters fire [in Beijing in February 2009], human skeletons lie forgotten. Is anyone accountable?”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei on Twitter in English (beta). (February 26, 2012) http://aiwwenglish.tumblr.com/
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

“Forty years ago, my dad gave up a safe seat in Congress to run for governor and, finally, forty years later, we're gonna have a Larry Hogan in the governor's mansion.”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

" Governor-elect Larry Hogan victory speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBB6Wn_i7Q8" (4 November 2014).

“…I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 115

“For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Bill Bryson112

Related quotes

Related topics