Joneses Quotes & Sayings

This self-destructive behavior is becoming more and more mainstream in our society today, because we like to keep up with the Joneses. We don't consider the fact that the Joneses' kids are not going to the university, and they will not be able to retire in comfort. Life should be better than that. — Celso Cukierkorn

My handbag turned into a diaper bag for the chronically ill. — Tracey Berkowitz

Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like the Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands? — Ray Bradbury

This entire ordeal taught me a valuable lesson. People are important-not things. I was no longer keeping up with the Joneses, material things or lots of money; that mattered very little to me. Life isn't about having, is about being. — Silvia Corradin

I don't keep up with the Joneses, I am the Joneses. — NeNe Leakes

You have a chance to move in far better society than the Joneses. Why worry about keeping up with the Joneses? Keep up with the Angels and you'll be far wiser and happier. — Fulton J. Sheen

The girl remembered London as a place of infinite freedom. Now it seemed she'd rented out her whole life to the Joneses in advance. Service had reduced her to a child, put her under orders to get up and lie down at someone else's whim; her days were spent obeying someone else's rules, working for someone else's profit. Nothing was Mary's anymore. Not even her time was hers to waste. — Emma Donoghue

People think that working hard for money and then buying things that make them look rich will make them rich. In most cases it doesn't. It only makes them more tired. They call it 'Keeping up with the Joneses.' And if you notice, the Joneses are exhausted. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

Many art-worlders have an if-you-say-so approach to art: Everyone is so scared of missing out on the next hot artist that it's never clear whether people are liking work because they like it or because other people do. Everyone is keeping up with the Joneses, and there are more Joneses than ever. — Jerry Saltz

We may yearn for rustic detail and old-world charm, but those who have it set their minds on vinyl wallpaper, fitted carpets and all mod cons. — Tahir Shah

Many a family, in order to make a 'proper showing,' will commit itself for a larger and more expensive house than is needed, in an expensive neighborhood. Almost everyone would, it seems, like to keep up with the Joneses. — Ezra Taft Benson

Stay away from the normals, the small-minded people who fill their brains with small-minded pursuits, who blend in and keep up with the Joneses. Those people will tear you down and make you boring. Instead, surround yourself with the weirds. With the misfits, oddballs, and outcasts. Because the normals, bless their hearts, have no idea how to have fun." *** — Penny Reid

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you. — Erma Bombeck

Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children's approach to life. They're people who don't give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn't much, either. — Walt Disney Company

I can't help feeling that people ask too much [of life]. They don't keep up with the Joneses any more
they outstrip them. What people call happiness, today, isn't happiness. It's enjoyment. It's pleasure. And between happiness and pleasure there's a very large gap. — Elizabeth Cadell

Yeah, I know. We just have to get through this calving season. If we keep the practice growing, I think Dr. Schultz will take me on as a partner, and we could hire another associate. He's been hinting at that." The next day, Rosalie volunteered to take over the driving so I could sleep between calls. She napped while I was delivering the calves. We had been going for sixteen hours when we arrived at the Joneses' ranch at one in the morning. John and Skipper came out of the house to greet us. "What's with Skipper?" I asked. "She's limping." "The cold seems to be affecting her," John answered. "Ferdie convinced me to spoil her. We're letting her sleep in the mudroom." We took off our boots and coats and entered the glowing kitchen. Kathy was waiting for us with hot coffee. There — David R. Gross

Librarians see themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment. You got a thousand Mother Joneses at the barricades! I love the librarians, and I am grateful for them! — Michael Moore

Reading is for pleasure; it's not another form of social competition. Leave those literary Joneses to it. — Heather Reyes

The things we once thought of as luxuries soon become necessities (although, by the same token, our sense of well-being would quickly adapt to losing half our income). What we care about is not our absolute wealth but our rung on the ladder. Ruut Veenhoven, a leading researcher of happiness, says, "When we have overtaken the Joneses, our reference drifts upward to the Smiths, and we feel unhappy again. — Simon Kuper

They [investment bankers] don't even want the stuff that they've got, you know the fancy cars and houses. Their consumption is basically just a keeping up with the Joneses or let's buy the markers of success because this is what I'm supposed to have and this is what I'm supposed to do. And they are working so hard that they don't even have the time to think about what they might actually desire. — Larkin Grimm

The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house. I think that dream's completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we're sharing with the Joneses. — Brian Chesky

Creative striving for a goal that is important to you as a result of your own deep-felt needs, aspirations, and talents (and not the symbols which the "Joneses" expect you to display) brings happiness as well as success because you will be functioning as you were meant to function. Man is by nature a goal-striving being. And because man is "built that way," he is not happy unless he is functioning as he was made to function - as a goal striver. Thus true success and true happiness not only go together but each enhances the other. — Maxwell Maltz

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper. — Quentin Crisp

Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level. — Quentin Crisp

There is not point keeping up with the Joneses if they're going someplace you don't want to go. — Michael Hyatt

Single gals aren't all a bunch of Bridget Joneses, desperate for love. — Anita Hamilton

They talked about each others' houses, and characters, and families
just as the Joneses do about the Smiths. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The governing ideal was not merely to keep up with the Joneses, but to be the Joneses - to own the same model of car or dishwasher or lawn mower. — Chris Anderson

Felicity laughs and takes on the tone of a fashionable lady. Darling, the Bryn-Joneses have just done the most marvelous thing in their parlor with human blood. We simply must have ours done straightaway! — Libba Bray

Oh, mansion shmansion. Did Gandhi's house have the largest outdoor trampoline in the tristate area? Did Jesus have a two-acre remote-controlled car track, with mountains to scale and a little village that lit up at night?
Not in his Bible. — George Saunders

Ten thousand officers and men named Smith died in the First World War. One thousand four hundred Campbells died, six thousand Joneses, and one thousand Murphys. Smith, Campbell, Jones and Murphy: the names of the United Kingdom, whose presence in regiments from all four countries speaks of the ebb and flow of peoples within these islands, of a common sacrifice, and a shared agony that burned in so many million hearts down the decades. — Kevin Myers

So now you know where to shop. Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. Stop wasting your money on conspicuous consumption. As a first step, work less, earn less, accumulate less, and "consume" more family time, vacations, and other enjoyable activities. — Jonathan Haidt

Twist and wring out the budget, work extra hours, sell something, or have a garage sale, but quickly get your $1,000. Most of you should hit this step in less than a month. If it looks as though it is going to take longer, do something radical. Deliver pizzas, work part-time, or sell something else. Get crazy. You are way too close to the edge of falling over a major money cliff here. Remember, if the Joneses (all the broke people) think you are cool, you are heading the wrong way. If they think you are crazy, you are probably on track. — Dave Ramsey

We call it keeping up with the Joneses. They buy a boat and we buy a bigger one. They get a new TV and we get a big screen. They start a business and we start planning our articles of incorporation and the first stock release. And while we're so busy keeping up, we ignore our soul, the inner voice, that's telling us that it really wants to teach children to read. While it helps to identify with each other, we're not the same. So why compare ourselves on the basis of material things? Are you walking a path with heart in your own life, regardless of what others have? — Melody Beattie