Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

The way we live is changing. Each year, our free time shrinks a little more as computers clamor for an increasing percentage of our attention.

Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour? It does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time.

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abscesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say "yes."

We must understand what our idea of wealth is. Is it just about more buildings, more machines, more cars, more of everything? More and more is death. In the most affluent societies in the world, for example in the United States of America, a significant percentage of the population is on anti-depressants on a regular basis. If you just withdraw one particular medication from the market, almost half the nation will go crazy. That is not wellbeing. Generally, an American citizen has everything that anyone would dream of.

Money brings some happiness. But after a certain point, it just brings more money.

I find that, once you get into a position where you can afford a pair of shoes and a decent level of living, success in itself is empty.

People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?

The modern era has brought up immense conveniences but at what price. The human heart is desperate for something more than a quicker serving of popcorn.

I'm not an overly material person. Sure, I like certain comforts in life. But buying a lot of 'things' doesn't produce happiness for me.

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.

But most Canadians have recognized to a greater or lesser extent that despite much of the so-called progress of the affluent society, essential ingredients to a meaningful life seem to be either entirely lacking, or at best, difficult to grasp.

Modern man is frantically trying to earn enough to buy things he's too busy to enjoy.

It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch.

You always hear the phrase, money doesn't buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it's not really true. I got a new car because the old one's lease expired.

As we get rich, the basics of life - food, clothing and shelter - become a very small part of total expenditure. And people have enough money to purchase things that enhance them spiritually, and I mean the word 'spiritual' not necessarily in a religious sense but in the sense that it adds to your feeling of well-being.

Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy.

Life took over 4 billion years to evolve into you, and you've about 70 more years to enjoy it. Don't just pursue happiness, catch it.

I really feel sorry for people who are, who divide their whole life up into 'things that I like' and 'things that I must do.' You're only here for a short time, mate. Learn to like it.

Individually, people are finding that a simpler lifestyle provides greater satisfaction than relentless pursuit of materialism.

Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

The masses in highly industrialized countries like England, the United States, or France are largely de-Christianized. Technology, and the way of life it produces, undermines Christianity far more effectively than do violent measures.

There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but when you are trying to buy nice things to be happy, you are going to hurt. It's not going to work.

Humans are extremely good in acquiring new power, but they are not very good in translating this power into greater happiness, which is why we are far more powerful than ever before but we don't seem to be much happier.