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Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like.

— Walter Slezak

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Notes from Wikiquote

Already in 1905 W.T. O'Connor had stated that advertising was "The gentle art of persuading the public to believe that they want something they don't need" in "Advertising Definitions", in Ad Sense, Vol. 19, No. 2 (August 1905), p. 121, and in 1931 one finds Will Rogers being quoted with advertising "as something that makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want." But this complete statement with the finale "to impress people you don't like" seems to have originated with Slezak. However, Quote Investigator instead traces the quotation back to American humorist Robert Quillen, who wrote in 1928: "Americanism: Using money you haven't earned to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like."

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More quotes by Walter Slezak

I never lie unless it is absolutely necessary. Or convenient.

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After America had entered the war in December 1941 all postal service with Germany and Austria was stopped. But Papa had faithfully kept on writing to me, a ten-page letter nearly every week.

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You have to work five or six years in the theatre—in hit shows—to make people sick and tired of you, but this you can accomplish in only a few weeks on television. It's a remarkable medium.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Walter Slezak (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.