I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? Is it a legacy of our colonial years? We want foreign television sets. We want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported?

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

Well, we’re living in a material world, and I’m a material girl… or boy.

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

A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.

How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

For greed all nature is too little.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

The problem with car dealerships is you’ve already decided what you want to buy before you even go there, and you’re really just going there to talk through some annoying negotiation.

I don’t believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we’ve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.

Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.

As a mom, I know it is my responsibility, and no one else’s, to raise my kids. But we have to ask ourselves, what does it mean when so many parents are finding their best efforts undermined by an avalanche of advertisements aimed at our kids.

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.

Everyone knows that when you look at a television ad, you do not expect to get information. You expect to see delusion and imagery.

It’s no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism.

If you’re entering anything where there’s an existing marketplace, against large, entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can’t be a little bit better, because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer… you’re always going to buy the trusted brand unless there’s a big difference.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they’re not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.

People concerned about inflation today tend to buy big houses and nice cars.

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, ‚why don’t I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,‘ and they abandon their values.

Not necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

Within one’s own family, money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn’t have to advertise them.

Material things are delightful, but they’re not important.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

We should never let material things get ahead of God or become so important in our lives that we can’t walk away from them if He tells us to. Anything you own that has a hold on you is a problem.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.