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The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.
Eric Sevareid
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that anxiety is a major industry in America, influencing people's lives more than traditional businesses.

Eric Sevareid emphasizes that anxiety has become a pervasive and monetizable aspect of American life, overshadowing more tangible industries such as steel, automobiles, or television. This highlights how societal pressures, fears, and stressors are not just personal experiences but are also commodified and managed by various sectors, making anxiety a significant cultural and economic force.

Themes

AnxietyBusinessSocietyStressCulture

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about mental health awareness, this quote can be used to underline the societal impact of anxiety.

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Quote by Eric Sevareid | QuoteProject