Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes

There are a lot of things to get seduced by in America.

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

The mood of the 80s - Get what you can, can what you get, and sit on the can.

Money commands everything because that's our interpretation of capitalism... what kind of world is that? It's a very uncomfortable interpretation of a human being. We have been turned into robots.

We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.

The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle.

There's a lot of bad isms floating around this world, but one of the worst is commercialism.

We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.

Modern capitalism is masterful at producing services people don't need and in large part probably don't want. It is brilliant at convincing people that they do need and want them. But it has difficulty turning itself to the production of those services which people really do need. Not only that, it often spends an enormous amount of time and effort convincing people that those services are either unrealistic, marginal or counterproductive.

Not everything in the United States is for sale.

The selfish spirit of commerce which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.

The production of goods had become an end in itself and the consumption of goods only the means to further production.

today everything is commercialized--politics, religion, education, ideology, belief, the armed services. ...Everything has its price.

The love of material ease has been, in the mass of men and permanently speaking, always greater than the love of liberty.

A market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values sweep into every aspect of human endeavor. It is a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.

Nobody seemed to be interested in anything except making money.

We must expect for a long time yet to see capitalists still striving to obtain the highest possible profits. But observe, that the passion for wealth is certainly in some senses new. It grew up very rapidly at the beginning of the present century; it was not so strong in the last century, when men were much more content to lead a quiet easy life of leisure. The change has really influenced the relations between men; but in the future it is quite possible that the scramble for wealth may grow less intense, and a change in the opposite direction take place.

I think the main focus in America is - is basically greed.

I think everything is a motive for money. Every thought, every belief, everything we're taught in school.

I think we live in a culture that is actually hedging all of it towards comfort and immediacy, things that scare me. All the things that they sell us as a way of life scare me.

We're always serving something, even if we're not aware of it. We're usually serving capitalism.

This is the western world; if somebody can make a buck, they're going to try to do it.

Capitalism is a set of rituals.

Materialism isn't the panacea that so many people think it is.