Vivienne Westwood Quotes Page 2

“It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.”

“It's true the punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles. These motifs were so iconic in themselves – motifs of rebellion.”

“More people should read books. It's the most concentrated experience you can have.”

“My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.”

“My beauty secret is absolutely no sun.”

“My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.”

“Our economic system, run for profit and waste and based primarily on the extractive industries, is the cause of climate change. We have wasted the earth's treasure and we can no longer exploit it cheaply.”

“People have never looked so ugly as they do today. We just consume far too much.”

“Personally I'm not a feminist, as I can't stand puritans.”

“Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture.”

“Print some money and give it to us for the rain forests.”

“The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline... because you need to be alone to find out anything.”

“The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.”

“The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.”

“The main message of Climate Revolution is that climate change is caused by the rotten financial system we've got, designed to create poverty and rip off any profits for a small amount of rich people. Meanwhile, it destroys the earth.”

“The main message we want to get out there is that climate change is caused by the rotten economic system.”

“The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas.”

“The sexiest people are thinkers. Nobody's interested in somebody who's just vain with a hole in their head, talking about the latest thing – there is no latest thing. It's all rubbish.”

“There is so much that people take for granted.”

“There's nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.”

“To me, reading a fashion magazine is the last thing I need to do. I've got books I need to read.”

“We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.”

“We are the most amazing creatures that this world has ever produced, but we seem to also have this herd mentality; we seem to be the most stupid, also.”

“We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.”

“What I'm always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last.”

“When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy.”

“When I was a little girl you used to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore.”

“When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla – a rebel.”

“You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.”

“You've got to invest in the world, you've got to read, you've got to go to art galleries, you've got to find out the names of plants. You've got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We're amazing people.”