Non-Essential Goods Quotes

It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.

If milk goes way up in price, my people in Idaho can stop drinking milk. But we can’t stop using power.

Rules are to be initiated for the allotment of scarce raw materials etc; and their use and processing for other than war, or otherwise absolutely vital, goods is prohibited.

Sugar, rum and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.

Once a person has all the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment.

Immediate restrictions must be introduced to drastically reduce imports. We waste millions of dollars on provocative imported commodities, like dog food, nuts, and ice cream.

The Manufactures of the World may be reduced to two sorts; that is, the Necessary, which consist in all that is wrought for Man's Necessities or conveniences; and the Superfluous, which consist in all that is wrought, and serves to gratify his Vanity or Pleasures.

The most important fact about our shopping malls, as distinct from the ordinary shopping centers where we go for our groceries, is that we do not need most of what they sell, not even for our pleasure or entertainment, not really even for a sensation of luxury. Little in them is essential to our survival, our work, or our play, and the same is true of the boutiques that multiply on our streets.