George Grant Quotes

In twenty-first-century America, our stories have become one and the same: we work to consume, we live to consume, we are what we consume.

In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption.

I shop, therefore I am.

We believe we are the consumers, but we are the consumed.

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.

The urge to consume is fathered by the value system which emphasizes the ability of the society to produce.

The habits of the West in terms of consumption.

The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business.

I like suggesting that 'we are slaves to the objects around us,' that 'plenty should be enough,' or that the 'buyer should beware,' within the context of conventional selling space.

There came into the world an unlimited abundance of everything people need. But people need everything except unlimited abundance.

We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really.

Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising.

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.

We have an imbalance over how much we produce relative to how much we consume.

Not everything in the United States is for sale.

Democracy, and man-made laws in general, correlate closely with consumer culture.

We have become too much a society of consumers rather than a society of citizens.

We are being conditioned, as a population, to never wait, to never delay our gratification, to accept thoughtless, constant consumption as the new norm. But how we think about consumption and willpower carry enormous implications for the environment and the culture of society as a whole.

In ancient times, we were users; we used the commodities in accordance to our needs. Using is not sufficient for the modern market; it needs consumers. Consuming means consuming things much more than the natural need of humanity or of any living being.

Overconsumption is the mother of all environmental problems. For the first time in the history of capitalism, consumption itself has become controversial.

Production and consumption are the nipples of modern society. Thus suckled, humanity grows in strength and beauty; rising standard of living, all modern conveniences, distractions of all kinds, culture for all, the comfort of your dreams.

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, for such a society is a house built upon sand.

I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.

In the end, there will be little else for us to do but shop.

I think about capitalism, consumerism, our consumptive nature as a species approaching the 21st century. I certainly don't have the answers.