Mason Cooley Quotes

Human nature doesn't change. When enough people are comfortable enough financially, there is going to be human nature that wants to spend more money on better quality and, to some degree, status symbols as well.

Money is a topic that touches all races, all religions, all sexes, all ages, all tax brackets. It's a universal language that truly has been held up to us in society as a thing that determines whether we are successful, worthy, whether we have contributed something to life or not.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

We have allowed ourselves to be defined by our consumption instead of by our ability to move beyond it.

The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves . . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine.

Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.

I guess money can't buy happiness if you shop in the wrong places.

All too often a family’s spending is governed more by their yearning than by their earning. They somehow believe that their life will be better if they surround themselves with an abundance of things. All too often all they are left with is avoidable anxiety and distress

It is among the less privileged groups relatively new to leisure and consumption that the zest for possessions retains something of its pristine energy.

We spend a remarkably small, shamefully small, percentage of our income on food. We manage to spend money on lots of other things. All up and down the social ladder you find people with plenty of money for cell phones, home entertainment systems, all other forms of entertainment.

Modern man's happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments.

There are a lot of people with money, but not with the passion to really go spend it.

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 .

Money is much more exciting than anything it buys.

Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?

Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. The old proletariat sold its labour power in order to subsist; what little leisure time it had was passed pleasantly enough in conversations, arguments, drinking, making love, wandering, celebrating and rioting. The new proletarian sells his labour power in order to consume. When he’s not flogging himself to death to get promoted in the labour hierarchy, he’s being persuaded to buy himself objects to distinguish himself in the social hierarchy. The ideology of consumption becomes the consumption of ideology.

When love and adventure are finished, it's nice to have getting and spending to fall back on.

Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have on things we do not need?

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. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

I'm not a minimalist, as I'm sure you've noticed.

Riches are for spending.

The advantages of wealth are greatly exaggerated.

Rich women need not fear old age; their gold can always create about them any feelings necessary to their happiness.