Alain de Botton Quotes

I'm part of the consumer culture... I'm just using the space I am given to express something that is out of the space so I'm part of the consumer system but I'm advocating stepping out. Which is a contradiction but I could be part of he consumer system and say, 'let's consume even more.'

Expensive advertising courts us with hints and images. The ordinary kind merely says, Buy.

Brand loyalty starts in the cradle and ends in the grave, as I wrote in my first book, 'Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.'

People don't get a chance to think, "Why am I a consumer?" Because the decisions come at them so fast and furiously, they're not [even] given time to think, I am a consumer.

As a consumer, you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.

Persuasion has become a kind of force. The more the advertiser knows about what consumers want, and the more desires the product and packaging seek to fulfill, the more coercive the force.

Studies indicate that these children are more susceptible to advertising and even less likely to understand the purpose of this advertising.

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.

Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it.

You can enjoy the quality of the ad and not let them pressure you to buy what you don't really need. I have had fun taking back superlatives and just ordinary good words and phrases from ads and trying to restore some of their life to them.

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

We need to be much more robust consumers.

When marketers influence habits, they influence peoples' self-identity. And so when a group or company does something that doesn't correspond to our core values, it feels like a betrayal.

I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

Consumerism is so weird. It's a sort of conspiracy we collude in. You'd think shoppers spending their hard-earned cash would be highly critical. You know that the manufacturers are trying to have you on.

A product is usually created to improve people's lives; otherwise, why buy it? I'm no genius, but I am an American, and gosh-darnit, I consume, so I know what I'm talking about.

What were we told to do? Get back on those airplanes. Shop in the malls. The trouble was that the only role they had for us was as consumers—not as citizens.

How do people know what they want until we show them?

Basic labeling and consumer information hasn’t been a chief priority, but hopefully now its starting to change.

Whether it's buying products or researching what you're buying, or just becoming aware of what you're buying, you're saying so much with the money that you're spending.

I'm caught up probably just as much in the consumer culture as the next person.

I do not want to ask people to go consume something unless I think it is important in some way.

I think teens trust each other's opinions about products because of the quality of authenticity that they think their friend's recommendation has.

We consumers have to send a message every day of what we want and what we don't.

I read Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' when I was 15. It's one of the things that's shaped my relationship to fame - to endorsements, to selling things.