While advertisements excite us by evoking our real needs accurately, they refuse to quench them properly.
Book: Great Thinkers
This is from a chapter introducing Epicurus and mainly focusing on the three things that Epicurus identified as false lures of happiness: romantic love, professional status, and luxury. I just found the following paragraph interesting.
"Beer ads will show us groups of friends hugging – but only sell us alcohol (that we might end up drinking alone). Fancy watch ads will show us high-status professionals walking purposefully to the office, but won’t know how to answer the desire for intrinsically satisfying work. And adverts for tropical beaches may titillate us with their serenity, but can’t – on their own – deliver the true calm we crave."