Philip Wylie Quotes

I had more clothes than I had closets, more cars than garage space, but no money.

I got a wife who likes expensive things, so she takes all the cash.

I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.

This is the other thing: we make the cost of raising kids higher than it has to be just because we feel they need all this stuff, like gadgets, certain schools, and activities that are nice but aren't really necessary.

I already own more than any human being needs.

We have had two chickens in every pot, two cars in every garage, and now we have two headaches for every aspirin.

With much we surfeit; plenty makes us poor.

A strange species we are; we can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick.

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

You know when you first get rich, and you, like, just buy everything that you see? I did that for several years. And I have sheds full of things, maybe sometimes nine copies of the same thing.

We spend money we don't have, on things we don't need, to make impressions that don't matter.

We live in an era of consumerism and it's all about desire-based consumerism and it has nothing to do with things we actually need.

Riches get their value from the mind of the possessor; they are blessings to those who know how to use them, and curses to those who do not.

Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.

The folly of endless consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through materialism.

I do, kind of, spend a lot. And just on stupid things. Because I don't really know what to do. What are you supposed to do? Um. It just seems like way too much. We don't deserve it, at all, for what we do.

Many a family, in order to make a 'proper showing,' will commit itself for a larger and more expensive house than is needed, in an expensive neighborhood. Almost everyone would, it seems, like to keep up with the Joneses.

Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.

Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.

Homer Simpson is one of my favorite people, though he's not real. He represents the American who's filled with this 'affluenza.' He's constantly exposed to consumption and a sense of bigness, which is a part of being an American.

Television's escapist programming naturally continues to endorse living beyond one's means as the time-tested American Way and rarely depicts families or individuals wracked by the pressures and miseries that come with excess.

And plenty makes us poor.

Too much may be the equivalent of none at all.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.