Quotes about consumer (835 quotes, page 9)

“The U.S. economy crashes when it becomes too top heavy because the economy depends on consumer spending to keep it going... For a time, the middle class and poor can keep the economy going nonetheless by borrowing. But, as in 1929 and 2008, debt bubbles eventually burst. We're getting dangerously close. By the first quarter of this year, household debt was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

Time , Dependency

“[P]ublic interest groups, consumer protection organizations, and... social networks have worked relentlessly to break through the battalions of lobbyists paid by corporate interests...”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

Breaking Through Power (2016)

“Young man! Deny yourself satisfaction (of amusement, of debauchery, of love, etc.), not with the Stoical intention of complete abstinence, but with the refined Epicurean intention of having in view an ever-growing pleasure. This stinginess with the cash of your vital urge makes you definitely richer through the postponement of pleasure, even if you should, for the most part, renounce the indulgence of it until the end of your life. The awareness of having pleasure under your control is, like everything idealistic, more fruitful and more abundant than everything that satisfies the sense through indulgence because it is thereby simultaneously consumed and consequently lost from the aggregate of totality.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 54.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Pleasure , Sense , Love , Life

“In a free-market economy, the consumer is king: labor unions don't run things, business people don't run things, bankers don't run things, politicians don't run things, but the success of a business depends on how people spend their money.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

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

Money , Dependency , Success , Business

“Every business faces its challenges…It's not realistic to think otherwise. If nothing else, it brings out the best in the team. It's important at that point to be open with the consumer and educate them around the realities of creating a product in bulk.”

Jessica Alba (1981) American model, free-diver and businesswoman; TV and film actress

On handling business challenges in “Exclusive: Jessica Alba on overcoming criticism at work” https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/people-parties/bazaar-at-work/a43744/jessica-alba-honest-company-defence/ in Harper’s Bazaar (2017 Sep 11)

Business , Education , Thinking , Reality

“…as we become more alienated from the things we consume, especially while buying online, the out-of-sight,out-of-mind problem becomes more intense.”

Ian Urbina (1972) American journalist

On consumers being willing to avoid abuses in “Wage Theft, Slavery, and Climate Change on the Outlaw Ocean” https://civileats.com/2019/09/27/wage-theft-slavery-and-climate-change-on-the-outlaw-ocean/ (Civil Eats; 2019 Sep 27)

Problem

“Most of us struggle for years against beliefs that have been deeply rooted in our being. We do everything we can think of to try to resist and fight against the beliefs when all we really need to do is sit down and directly pull these roots up so we can see them clearly and then replace them. It may be a bit time consuming, but look at it this way… you have the choice to struggle against them every day of your busy life or to take an hour or two of your time and focus specifically on doing the work necessary to alter them for good so you no longer have to struggle against them.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Time , Business , Thinking , Way

“Pre-eighteenth century economics were governed, not by consumers, who determined what should be produced by what they were willing to buy in a competitive market, but by producers who enjoyed special privileges in return for the most stringent kind of state regulations. Mr. Walter Lippmann, in his book, The Good Society, points out that in the days of Louis XIV the manufacturers of France were told exactly what to produce and exactly how to produce it. Industry and agriculture were governed by codes more complicated than anything ever invented by the NRA or Mr. Wallace.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 66

Books

“The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system; and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Business , Personality , Summer

“If we really came to a position in which we could no longer produce the grain which we must necessarily consume, then in what state would we be if in wartime we had no Russian grain imports and perhaps simultaneously were blockaded along our coasts – in other words, if we had no grain at all?”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Source: Speech to the Reichstag advocating protective tariffs, quoted in Paul Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (1980), p. 51

“Growthmania is the fatal disease of civilisation - it must be replaced by campaigns that make equity and well-being society’s goals - not consuming more junk.”

Paul R. Ehrlich (1932) American scientist and environmentalist

Source: Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruption https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/top-scientists-warn-of-ghastly-future-of-mass-extinction-and-climate-disruption-aoe. The Guardian (2021)

Making love , Disease

“Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable. Propaganda is far more pornographic than a home video of two people fucking.”

Michael Haneke (1942) Austrian film director and screenwriter

[Christopher Sharrett, http://www.kinoeye.org/04/01/interview01.php, Austrian film: Michael Haneke interviewed, Kinoeye, 20 September 2011]

Home , War , People , Life

“The artist must learn the difference between the appearance of an object and the interpretation of this object through his medium. The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Attributed to Rodin in: Southwestern Art Vol. 6 (1977). p. 20; Partly cited in: A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought (2004) by Lloyd Albert Johnson, p. 7
1930s and later

Appearance , Making love , Learning , Art

“When tariffs are eliminated, consumers pay less for foreign goods. They therefore have more money to spend on other things. Their spending creates more new jobs than those that are lost.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 183

Money

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), p.189

Problem , Self-confidence , World , Happiness

“One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example. And I assume that on an average, the ratio of utility is some continuous mathematical function of the quantity of commodity. This law of utility has, in fact, always been assumed by political economists under the more complex form and name of the Law of Supply and Demand. But once fairly stated in its simple form, it opens up the whole of the subject.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Letter to his brother (1 June 1860), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 151. https://archive.org/details/cu31924074297254/page/n168/mode/1up

Mathematics , Law , Food

“I think [if you] consume mainstream pop culture and don’t activate a search for any other niche outlets then you can fall into this feeling that you are inferior.”

Ali Wong (1982) American actress, comedian, and writer

On how Asian-Americans might circumvent the feeling of being underrepresented in mainstream culture in in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/oct/17/god-i-was-disgusting-ali-wong-on-why-womens-bodies-are-the-last-taboo in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)

Search , Thinking , Feeling

“The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I’m a parent. And I think anybody who has children, you come to this realization, you know—what’ll it be? Alienated, cynical intellectual? Or slack-jawed, half-wit consumer of the horseshit being handed down from on high? There is not much choice in there, you see. And we all want our children to be well adjusted; unfortunately, there’s nothing to be well adjusted to!”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Thinking , Parent , Children , Stupidity

“It may be deeply uncomfortable to reflect on eating savvy creatures who express their emotions. My strong suspicion—which I hope will be tested as a hypothesis—is that some people will decrease their meat and fish intake as they learn more about who they are consuming.”

Barbara J. King (1956) American anthropologist and primatologist

The Inner Lives of "Food Animals" https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-inner-lives-of-food-animals/ (March 16, 2017)

Strong , People , Learning , Fish

“Patients are not consumers, but sick, scared, vulnerable. Doctors and nurses are practicing a calling, a vocation, a craft and an art.”

Victoria Sweet Physician

San Francisco Catholic https://catholic-sf.org/news/slow-medicine

Art

“The consumer has been given no choice, but to keep buying and consuming non-stop.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“We don't want to disrupt the meat industry, we want to transform it. We need their economies of scale, their global supply chain, their marketing expertise and their massive consumer base.”

Bruce Friedrich (1969) Member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

TED Talk: The next global agricultural revolution https://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_friedrich_the_next_global_agricultural_revolution/, 2019

“One fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 508
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 2)

Selfishness , Soul , World

“Evil will come to nought and will be completely destroyed. The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

A Treatise on 1 Corinthians 15.28 https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/in-illud-tunc-et-ipse-filius/

God , Evil , Nature

“In the absence of more consumers, capital finds ways to get existing consumers to consume more. Indeed, the dominant story for the past few hundred years: the growth rate of material use has always significantly outstripped the growth rate of the population.”

Jason Hickel (1982) author

Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021)
Source: Rise of the Juggernaut, pp. 111-112

Past , Way

“School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008)
Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) p. xxii

School , Children , Thinking , Training

“I felt it was shaving away my soul little by little…The music industry is this supersaturated version of consumerism. You are the product being consumed, bought, and sold. Even the people on your team who are your friends, the very foundation of your dynamic is that they get a percentage of your income. Every time I turned something down, it would mean that they would make less money.”

Mitski (1990) Japanese-American singer-songwriter

Laurel Hell
Source: On why she initially decided to leave the music industry in Mitski Had to Quit Music to Love It” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/mitski-new-album-laurel-hell-cover-story-1272973/ in Rolling Stone (2021 Dec 27)

Money , Soul , People , Time

“[M]andatory public education in this country … was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending such a herd via public education.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008)
Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) pp. xix-xx

Education , Time , Country