Zhang Yimou Quotes

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

Sometimes America gets tempted by the glitz and glamour.

We live in such a self-gratifying nation, and everything is instantaneous.

You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.

One set of messages of the society we live in is: Consume. Grow. Do what you want. Amuse yourselves.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts.

Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement!

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.

Worldly pleasures, such as flow from greatness, riches, honours, and sensual gratifications, are infinitely worse than none.

We use fashion for status and to beautify and there's nothing wrong with that, but when it becomes completely unbalanced, then you're living a decadent life. And when that happens on a global scale, you're living in a decadent world.

This has resulted in more and more people becoming inner-directed and having as their only goal, getting as much as they can get out of the system and putting as little into it as possible.

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

Every man makes a god of his own desire.

I'm a big believer that you can try to change the world based on philosophy, doctrine, and belief. But I think the thing that really drives the world is hedonism, the pleasure factor.

The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature of man considered in his single capacity, and with respect only to the present world, is adapted and leads him to attain the greatest happiness he can for himself in the present world.

Today, people are more into the glitz and the glamour of everything. We don't even read the inside of records anymore.

I'm frightened of my innate vanity. I mean: the suits lined with scarves? Even I know the warning signs. I could quite easily end up in a tiny Playboy mansion, all on my own.

I don't believe I have a playboy life.

We don't plan to be good or bad. We just think, 'What do I want now? I want coffee now. I want the paper now.'

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

I often buy things, feel a little guilty, but then think that it's so worth it.

It's sad to me that the main stage of history is a story of how we became this visually obsessed, extremely narcissistic, extremely concerned about image, culture. At least in the West.