materialism quotes

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

We should never let material things get ahead of God or become so important in our lives that we can’t walk away from them if He tells us to. Anything you own that has a hold on you is a problem.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

Not necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

Within one’s own family, money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything.

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.

Material things are delightful, but they’re not important.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, ‚why don’t I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,‘ and they abandon their values.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

There’s nothing – I’ve bought everything I want. I don’t like yachts or anything; you know, I’m not a yacht person, and I’ve got pretty much the nicest plane I’d want to have.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

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.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we’ve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

For greed all nature is too little.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

It’s no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Well, we’re living in a material world, and I’m a material girl… or boy.

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.