#consume

We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#conception #consumes #down #escaping #every

The economy has become seriously unbalanced. Its growth has not been driven by investment or by overcoming Britain's long-standing weaknesses in investment and productivity, particularly skills. Instead, there has been a binge of debt-financed consumer spending. ↗

— Vince Cable

#been #binge #britain #consumer #driven

Living standards in both the public and private sector have to be brought down. The private sector has to sell more abroad and consume less at home. The government sector has to get closer to just spending what it can collect in taxes. ↗

— John Redwood

#both #brought #closer #collect #consume

People's attitudes have been changing over the past 15 years, but China is still the world's biggest consumer of dogs. ↗

— Jill Robinson

#been #biggest #changing #china #consumer

Indeed, we must foster cost-saving competition. And that means joining the marketplace of other industrialized countries - not just for the manufacturers who sell drugs, but for consumers as well. ↗

— Olympia Snowe

#consumers #countries #foster #indeed #industrialized

Here, in Lorrain's poisoned little jewel of a tale (“The Man Who Made Wax Heads”) the consummate achievement of decadent art is caught in miniature. The genius of the artist entangles perpetrators and victims in a sticky web of perverse delights, in which exploitation becomes collusion, the ripples of guilt spread outward, and the real criminal slips away. In the end, responsibility is lodged firmly with the consumer, forced – he must confess – by his own perverse desires, to buy into the values of this particularly black market. ↗

— Jennifer Birkett

#consumer #crime #criminal #decadence #guilt

Wait long enough, and what was once mainstream will fall into obscurity. When that happens, it will become valuable again to those looking for authenticity or irony or cleverness. The value, then, is not intrinsic. The thing itself doesn’t have as much value as the perception of how it was obtained or why it is possessed. Once enough people join in, like with oversized glasses frames or slap bracelets, the status gained from owning the item or being a fan of the band is lost, and the search begins again. You would compete like this no matter how society was constructed. Competition for status is built into the human experience at the biological level. Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The wealthy compete with possessions. You sold out long ago in one way or another. The specifics of who you sell to and how much you make—those are only details. ↗

— David McRaney

#consumerism #experience

In consumer life we become what we consume-disposable junk to be used and thrown away. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#consumption #essence-of-life #life

To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people. ↗

— John Powell

#friends #love #love

The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment. ↗

— Confucius

#consumerism #greed #materialism #profit #greed