I stumbled upon a treasure-trove of quotes while searching for a CS Lewis quote about the evil of advertising.

“There is a burden of care in getting riches; fear of keeping them; temptation in using them; guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them; and a burden of account at last to be given concerning them.”

-Matthew Henry (1662-1714)

Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about ‘misery.’

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) Letters to Arthur Greeves, 13 January 1917

Whither thou goest, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

-Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), On the Road, 1957

Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seeks for goods before they seek God.

-Bernard of Clairvaux, (1091-1153) On the Love of God

Give the public the ‘image’ of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.

Madeline L’Engle (1918-2007), A Circle of Quiet, 1972

When I walk into a grocery store and look at all the products you can choose, I say, “No king ever had anything like I have in my grocery store today.”

-Bill Gates quoted in Parade Magazine, 14 Jul 02

Sunday Jesus has some words for us:
See Luke 18:18-30

We’ll think about words to the wealthy (us!):
“Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.”

-G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Commonwealth, 1933