"In reality, we live only for the superfluous: the simple satisfaction of our needs, paying our bills and feeding and housing ourselves, is a curse. We gladly spend on our desires, but we resist paying for our duties. During the Great Depression, American historians note, some of the most modest households preferred to buy cheese and cigarettes rather than essential food supplies, and a woman in New York nearly starved herself to death so that she could use her welfare check to have her hair set and dyed. An aberrant attitude? No doubt, but it remains that being human always resides in excess and not in simple survival."
Pascal Bruckner The Wisdom of Money (2017) p.203
