We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

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

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

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

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

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

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

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

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

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.

You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.

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.

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.

Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it’s a good place that we’re all in, you know, on this earth, if we take care of it.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

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

God doesn’t do things halfway. He goes all out! When God does something, it’s not just barely enough, mediocre or lukewarm.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

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.

Strong emotions such as passion and bliss are indications that you’re connected to Spirit, or ‚inspired,‘ if you will. When you’re inspired, you activate dormant forces, and the abundance you seek in any form comes streaming into your life.

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

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

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

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

Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

There’s a belief that you’re supposed to be poor, and suffering, and show your humility. I just don’t see the Bible that way. I see that God came and Jesus died so that we might live an abundant life and be a blessing to others.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

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

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.

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.

I just love to shop. If I could, I would shop every single day in every single store and spend all of my money which, you know, I do anyway.

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.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

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

The elections are run by the same industries that sell toothpaste on television.

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.

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

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

If we didn’t have the Chinese buying things, we’d be on the floor.

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

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

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

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