Commercialism Quotes

He beheld Lourdes, contaminated by Mammon, turned into a spot of abomination and perdition, transformed into a huge bazaar, where everything was sold, masses and souls alike! ~ Emile Zola

How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth? ~ Christopher Hitchens

We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think. ~ Rod Serling

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

The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it. ~ Lewis Grizzard

These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. ~ John Muir

Fashion and public relations share a charter to turn life to their own advantage, to make malleable and commercially useful the naked human perception. Both interests consider life too small, dull, and colorless to get itself sufficiently noticed without the lobbying efforts of professionals. ~ Kennedy Fraser

New York's perennial attraction was shopping. ~ Erik Larson

Commercialism that has absolutely no relationship to quality whatsoever, only quantitative assessment of a thing. ~ Wynton Marsalis

I just turn the record in. I don't think about the commercialism of it, but rather what's getting me off. That's why I stay in this business, because I can still afford to do exactly what I want to do. ~ Michael Hedges

Bonnie had arranged for the whole family to volunteer at a homeless shelter on Christmas morning. "I just hate all that crass commercialism of Christmas, don't you?" she'd told Madeline last week, when they'd run into each other in the shops. Madeline had been doing Christmas shopping, and her wrists were looped with dozens of plastic shopping bags. Fred and Chloe were both eating lollipops, their lips a garish red. Meanwhile Bonnie was carrying a tiny bonsai tree in a pot, and Skye was walking along next to her eating a pear. ("A fucking pear," Madeline had told Celeste later. For some reason she couldn't get over the pear.) ~ Liane Moriarty

Advertising is the voice of capital. We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it. The fight against hyper-commercialism becomes especially pronounced in the era of digital communications. ~ Robert Waterman McChesney

The assumption now is that the interests of the brand and of the game overlap to the degree that cricket need hardly be mentioned. ~ Gideon Haigh

For all of us involved in preaching the gospel, performing music, publishing Christian materials, and all the rest, there is an uncomfortable message here: Jesus is not terribly impressed with religious commercialism ~ Jim Cymbala

People ask about art and commercialism. I think that if someone tries to sell their work at a high price, that is the wrong way of doing it. ~ Yayoi Kusama

Now I ask you: could any muck-raker in a rage make up a list of titles more completely expressive of vulgarity, commercialism and general "bunk" than the above real ones? I ~ Upton Sinclair

But still at that particular level of commercialism I listen to those projects I still hear some stagnation in a lot of the stuff. ~ Kool Keith

How is it that when we see politics permeate every life sector we call it totalitarianism and when we see religion everywhere we call it theocracy, but when commerce dominates everything we call it liberty? ~ Benjamin Barber

Since inception, the IPL has worn its brand value like a corroboration of inner virtue. On the eve of this tournament, under the headline 'Brand IPL touches the sky', the league's website reverberated with the announcement that Brand Finance, a branding consultancy, had valued the brand value of the IPL brand at $4.13 billion worth of brand - which is a lot of brand, brand-wise. ~ Gideon Haigh

The arts shows that you're civilized, and it makes life sweet. So you can exist and you can buy more things and you can be more - we're dealing with a form of commercialism that obscures a prior relationship to quality, and it's a national problem. ~ Wynton Marsalis

Since Modi's Mumbai sign-off, much commentary has been focused on the brand-dilution potential inherent in its scandals. MS Dhoni doesn't think we should worry: 'IPL as a brand can survive on its own.' Shilpa Shetty, 'brand ambassador' of the Rajasthan Royals, tweets that we should: 'Custodians of Cricket must not hamper d Brandvalue of this viable sport.' Hampering d Brandvalue, insists new IPL boss Chirayu Amin, is the furthest thing from his mind: 'IPL's brand image is strong and nobody can touch that.' Harsha Bhogle, however, frets for the nation: 'Within the cricket world, Brand India will take a hit.'

Not much more than a week after Modi's first tell-all tweets, the media was anxiously consulting Brand Finance's managing director, Unni Krishnan. Had there been any brand dilution yet? It was, said the soothsayer gravely, 'too early to say'. He could, however, confirm the following: 'The wealth that can be created by the brand is going to be substantially significant for many stakeholders. A conducive ecosystem has to be created to move the brand to the next level… We have to build the requisite bandwidth to monetise these opportunities.' Er, yeah… what he said. Anyway, placing a value on the IPL brand has clearly been quite beneficial to Brand Finance's brand. ~ Gideon Haigh

Humanity has been institutionalized and we are all the products of commercial and institutional life. ~ Bryant McGill

The networks at their worst (were) at once greedy and timid. ~ David Halberstam

She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work. Trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other people's liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on, the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket. ~ Stephen Kinzer

Media work needs ideals. Maybe thirty years from now, after I retire, I'll see the media mature and make the transition from political party, interest group, and corporate to truly public. But over the next ten years, the encroachment of commercialism and worldliness will loom much larger than the democratization we imagine. -Jin Yongquan in China Ink ~ Judy Polumbaum

... everything based on arguments involving the 'is' of identidy and the older el (elementalistic) 'logic' and 'psychology', such as the prevailing doctrines, laws, institutions, systems. , cannot possibly be in full accordance with the structure of our nervous system. This, in turn, affects the latter and results in the prevailing private and public un-sanity. Hence, the unrest, unhappines, nervous strain, irritability, lack of wisdom and absence of balance, the instability of our instituitions, the wars and revolutions, the increase of 'mental ills, prostitution, criminality, commercialism as a creed, the inadequate standards of education, the low professional standards of lawyers, priests, politicians, physicians, teachers, parents, and even of scientists - which in the last-named field often lead to dogmatic and antisocial attitudes and lack of creativeness. ~ Alfred Korzybski

Sambit Bal may be right that this is a scandal the IPL needed. It certainly brings fans face-to-face with the tangled reality of their amusement, based as it is on a self-seeking, self-perpetuating commercial oligarchy issued licenses to exploit cricket as they please. Whether the fans care is another matter: one of the reasons Indians have embraced economic liberalisation so fervently is a shoulder-shrugging resignation about the efficiency and integrity of their institutions. Given the choice between Lalit Modi, with his snappy suits and his soi-disant 'Indian People's League', and the BCCI, stuffed with grandstanding politicians and crony capitalists, where would your loyalties lie? ~ Gideon Haigh

One may as well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man. ~ John Muir

[H]e had come to work for what the fee could buy, and not for joy of the work itself. ~ Orson Scott Card

We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country ... . Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. MORE IS GOOD. MORE IS GOOD. We repeat it
and have it repeated to us
over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore. ~ Morrie Schwartz.

Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they'll have jobs and get enough money to buy things. ~ Philip Slater

Commercialism is the blemish on the fair face of American life. Fighting against the terrible conditions of the explorer and pioneer, our forefathers had little time to think of beauty. Hearts and heads became as hardened to the more gracious things of life as did their bodies against physical hardship. Little by little, as nature yielded before the dynamite of their wills, life began to express itself in the same hard terms, and the great commerce of a New World bent everything to its indomitable will. ~ Alice Foote MacDougall

The commercialism may wash off sometime later. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

The art world was very small and the people got together at parties. There was less commercialism. ~ Claes Oldenburg

Commercialism is laying its great greasy paw upon everything including the irresponsible quest of thrills; so that, whatever democracy may be theoretically, one is sometimes tempted to define it practically as standardized and commercialized melodrama. ~ Irving Babbitt

Postmodern critics argue, with some justification, that travel and tourism often have the exact opposite effect, transforming the experience into an exploitative commercial affair - a kind of voyeuristic form of entertainment in which the native population and their culture becomes a purchasable commodity to satisfy hedonistic pursuits. The relationship between tourist and native is reduced to a kind of neocolonial "experiential commerce." [...] ~ Jermy Rifkin

Having in our childhood felt primal awe for the spectacle of the holiday, we are told to age into feeling sullen and resentful. You are supposed to proclaim Santa dead like preadolescent Nietzsches and decry the whole month as an orgy of crass commercialism. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

I'm totally anti-commercialism. ~ David Fincher

I think it's very important to really find the wheat amidst the chafe and not give into superficialities, to not get caught up the commercialism or the fads, you know, the "over-popularization" of some things that we might see today. That doesn't mean we have to throw out the Buddha with the bath water, it's not all bad. ~ Surya Das

Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion. ~ Michael Azerrad

The schedules are crammed with shows urging us to travel further, drive faster, build bigger, buy more, yet none of them are deemed to offend the rules, which really means that they don't offend the interests of business or the pampered sensibilities of the Aga class. The media, driven by fear and advertising, are hopelessly biased towards the consumer economy and against the biosphere. ~ George Monbiot

Angry contradiction of the patriarch is not creativity; it's delinquency calling for attention. Difference for the sake of difference is as empty an achievement as slavishly following the commercial imperative. ~ Robert McKee

I'm only here on Earth to serve God. I never had a career. I don't care about commercialism. I have a ministry and I'll fight for the ministry. ~ Larry Norman

When any creativity becomes useful, it is sucked into the vortex of commercialism, and when a thing becomes commercial, it becomes the enemy of man. ~ Arthur Miller

But I decided that buying the gift was more for me than for her, anyhow. A commercial kind of substitute for prayer. ~ Joe Haldeman

It seems to me in retrospect that the department stores and the dime stores did an excellent job of extending the 'sacred space' of Christmas in those days. And I sometimes wonder whether for people of no religion, this might have been the only sacred space they knew. When people rail now against the 'commercial nature of Christmas,' I'm always conflicted an unable to respond. Because I think those who would banish commercialism from the holiday fail to understand how precious and comforting the shop displays and music can be. ~ Anne Rice

I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead. ~ Miles Davis

My mother's illness fitted into this protest against the treatment of the sick who could not pay, the inefficiency of commercialism, the waste, the extravagance, and the poverty. ~ Ellen Wilkinson

Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and the outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas. ~ Jacob Needleman

Charging commercial institutions with failure to educate public taste is an indulgence from which intellectuals will only be deterred when they grasp that a non-existant contract can be neither breached nor enforced. If commerce is to be indicted for anything, it can only be for commercialism, and whether that is a crime or not is a political question. ~ Colin Watson

unless you take the view that footballers should be picked on their form as players, and not for personal considerations.' 'Ah!' said Mr Bowles, 'but that's what Vicar would call a counsel of perfection. People talk a lot about the team spirit and let the best side win, but if you was to sit in this bar and listen to what goes on, it's all spite and jealousy, or else it's how to scrape up enough money to entice away some other team's centre-forward, or it's complaints about favouritism or wrong decisions, or something that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The game's not what it was when I was a lad. Too much commercialism, and enough back-biting to stock an old maids' tea-party. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

In the midst of all the candy and commercialism, let's not lose sight of the true meaning of Halloween: tree worship and animal sacrifice. ~ Dana Gould

They saw themselves as rear-guard individualists, making a last-ditch stand against the twentieth century. They gave thanks loudly from morn till eve that they had escaped the soul
destroying commercialism of the city. They were tacky and cheerful and defiantly bohemian, tirelessly inquisitive about each other's doings, and boundlessly tolerant. When they fought, at least it was with fists and bottles and furniture, not lawyers. ~ Christopher Isherwood

V-Day ... if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for "your loved one" I think it's quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It's all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love. ~ Jess C. Scott

The highways of American cities are an enduring testimony to our acceptance of ugliness ~ J. Rufus Fears

Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring their feelings is good enough - they should be reading about leveraged buy-outs or how to get thin. We live in a culture that is so absolutely, madly focused on commercialism and on creating money and completely turned away from any other kind of creative value. People don't generally turn to poetry unless they're bereaved or have fallen in love. Or in adolescence, when their feelings are very strong and turbulent. I think most of us are dying for lack of spirit in this culture. ~ Erica Jong

Escape is a commodity like anything else. ~ Iain M. Banks

Sochi started with the same problem as every Winter Olympics. Forget the crass commercialism, the fake amateurism, NBC's refusal to televise important events live to all its viewers. As an event, the Winter Games fail on the most basic level. They're lousy to watch. ~ Alex Berenson

When not through external events, spirit communicates "internally" via symbols and signs. Symbolic language, like music, is universal and crosses beyond the limitations of verbal and written languages. It is a divine communication. Essentially, the Spirit is using All means necessary to inspire us and to get our attention – not an easy task in the material world of sights, sounds, online messages, TV and movies - and commercialism! ~ Stephen Poplin

Science is moving closer to weaponry, and Art is moving closer to commercialism. And never the twain shall meet. ~ Frank Zappa

What commercialism has brought into Linux has been the incentive to make a good distribution that is easy to use and that has all the packaging issues worked out. ~ Linus Torvalds

If you accept mass production, you accept that a small number of people will supervise the daily existence of a much larger number of people. You accept that human beings will spend long hours, every day, engaged in repetitive work, while suppressing any desires for experience or activity beyond this work. The workers' behaviour becomes subject to the machine. With mass production, you also accept that huge numbers of identical items will need to be efficiently distributed to huge numbers of people and that institutions such as advertising will arise to do this. One technological process cannot exist without the other, creating symbiotic relationships among technologies themselves. ~ Jerry Mander

That's why Credit card companies are evil. Are they sponsoring the show tonight? ... They are Evil. ~ Craig Ferguson

The town they entered differed little from any other he had been in lately. The ubiquitous Perkins, Applebees, Buffalo Wild Wings, Qdoba, and Panda Express were situated around the central hub that was Walmart, like appendages of some spider or octopus. Like some metastasizing tumor that threatened to overwhelm the town. ~ James Rozoff

Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that's only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we're all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism. ~ Tom Robbins

For eighteen centuries avid and pious Christians of divergent sects had overlaid the simplicity of Biblical scenes with tawdry symbolism, rude commercialism, and pious hokum. ~ David H. Finnie

Daddy always pointed out, it should come as no surprises to anyone that merchants want to move their wares-it's sorta what they do, after all. But that's just BUSINESS and that has nothing to do with CHRISTMAS. ~ Jill Conner Browne

Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money. ~ Miles Davis

The commercialism of yoga, the commercialism of Ayurveda, the commercialism of guru-ism, is difficult. It's difficult because it confuses, it confuses the general populations as to what this is all about, but yet those of us who are trained within a certain tradition, who trained from the ancestral gene bank, so to speak, it is fine, it's not bothersome at all because we must live. ~ Maya Tiwari

Commercialism and the mad desire to make money have blotted out everything else, and as a result we are not living, but merely existing. ~ Joseph Knowles