Philip Slater Quotations

The rule in our society is that while those who kill once make wretched a single person are severely punished, those (heads of state, inventors, manufacturers) who are responsible for the death, mutilation or general wretchedness of thousands or millions are rewarded with fame, riches and prizes... If you are going to rob, rob big; if you're going to kill, kill big.

At a conservative estimate, there are probably a million men and women in their twenties and thirties who would happily work long hours doing what most needs to be done, if they were paid something for it.

People can bear anything.

Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.

A true community maximizes the potential of whatever human resources exist within it (by allowing for all possible combinations), while networks minimize such utilization, since it's limited by each individual's capacity to absorb unsettling stimuli (new combinations).

Every time we buy something we deepen our emotional deprivation and hence our need to buy something.

We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it.

Motors make noise and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure - nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible noises - why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect? Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served to express some impulse of the owner.

One of the main reasons wealth makes people unhappy is that it gives them too much control over what they experience. They try to translate their own fantasies into reality instead of tasting what reality itself has to offer.

If we define pornography as any message from any communication medium that is intended to arouse sexual excitement, then it is clear that most advertisements are covertly pornographic.