Frank Capra Quotes

We always want more. Whether it is better clothes, a bigger house, faster cars, or the latest gadgets, satisfaction in these days of consumerism is difficult to find.

[T]he recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain, not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing is to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be.

Nobody's about saving anymore. No one cares about a rainy day anymore. Nobody saves up enough for even an umbrella for a rainy day. It's sad. It really is a new form of slavery. We used to work to be able to afford material things. Now we work for these things. They're the boss. That house you can't afford, that car that's out of your price range, that cellphone that drains your bank account - that's your boss.

I felt I was owned by possessions.

In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions.

I just don't like conspicuous consumption. I find it distasteful.

As human beings, we're very materialistic and have all this stuff - furs and cars and diamonds and money.

The media is convincing people that if you have that 'next thing,' that diamond, the right car, then you'd be happier.

A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.

I've long been interested in looking at the culture of consumerism and also was interested in this connection between the American dream and the house, and the house being kind of the ultimate expression of self and success.

Where consumption is both conspicuous and competitive, humanity will never run out of new wishes. All the while, industry creates new desires that are marketed, in the great fashion paradox, as both novelty and need.

People recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment.

Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.

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.

People like their handbag more than their sofa, and I hate it.

Our entire society is rooted around the idea of more, and longer has become the measure of success.

I have a Mercedes. I wear a Rolex watch. I have no problem with the selling of things.

And I can't even go to the grocery store without some ones that's clean and a shirt with a team/It seems we living the American dream but people highest up got the lowest self esteem/The prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings.

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.

Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership.

If money and material things become the center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves.

I see guys who can't make 10 percent of what I make, and yet they have four Bentleys, three houses, and four bodyguards.

All of us experience the sad effects of blind submission to consumerism. In the first place it represents crass materialism. At the same time it represents a radical dissatisfaction because one quickly learns that the more one possesses, the more one wants, while deeper aspirations remain unsatisfied and perhaps even stifled.

Some people, of course, can be happier with the cars, the fancy threads, the hilltop mansion, and the other status symbols of 'having made it', but I found that several of my most prized possessions were slipping away, despite all the fortune I had amassed.

It's a law of life: the tyranny of things.