Quotes About Materialism

Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?

But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.

A materialist would argue that I'm a product of my circumstances. But I make my own circumstances. If I make a change in my dominant thoughts or motives, a change in my situation and surroundings will soon follow. Through my actions, I attract people and situations to match my mentality. As I am, so I act; and as I act, so I attract.

arts become frivolous. Science grows cold and inhumane. There are no heroes, only celebrities. Social bonds are broken. People no longer care for each other, but only for what they can get from each other.

If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.

god contradicts his own perfection if he can be reached, touched, disturbed, or in any way changed from it by anything in this material world below.

To turn the tide of materialism in the Christian community, we desperately need bold models of kingdom-centered living. Despite our need to do it in a way that doesn't glorify people, we must hear each other's stories about giving or else our people will not learn to give.

God created us to love people and use things, but materialists love things and use people.

C. S. Lewis put it this way: We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.5 Even many Christians have settled for a life of unsatisfying material acquisitions, like making mud pies in a slum.

You can't take it with you— but you can send it on ahead.

Though I live in a world that sells false happiness at newsstands, websites, and big-box stores, I thank God for authentic happiness in Jesus.

Even if materialism brought happiness in this life (which it certainly does not), it would leave us woefully unprepared for the next.   Materialism blinds us to our spiritual poverty. It's a fruitless attempt to find meaning outside of God, the Source of all life and the Giver of all good gifts.

Ever seen that bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys wins"? Millions of people act as if it were true. The more accurate saying is "He who dies with the most toys still dies—and never takes his toys with him." When we die after devoting our lives to acquiring things, we don't win—we lose. We move into eternity, but our toys stay behind, filling junkyards. The bumper sticker couldn't be more wrong.

Every item I add to my possessions is one more thing to think about, talk about, clean, repair, display, rearrange, and replace when it goes bad.

In the United States there are sixteen-and-a-half square feet of mall space for every man, woman, and child.

a solemn reminder not to make our goal in life one of sheer material pursuit. The allurement is great, and the disappointments are proportionate.

We trivialize the body in our indulgences. We treat it as a means to other ends. But when death comes, we grasp at it and cling to it because it is all we have left.

Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.

People don't talk about anything... No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else.

Well, after all, this is the age of the disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush. Everyone using everyone else's coattails. How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a program or know the names? For that matter, what color jersey's are they reading as they trot out to the feild?

Spesso scivolo come un serpente su una vettura della sotterranea a sentire cosa dicono le persone. O nelle mescite di bibite dolci, e sapete che cosa ho scoperto? - - Che cosa? - - Che la gente non dice nulla. - - Oh, parlerà pure di qualche cosa, la gente! - - No, vi assicuro. Parla di una gran quantità di automobili, parla di vestiti e di piscine e dice che sono una meraviglia! Ma non fanno tutti che dire le stesse cose e nessuno dice qualcosa di diverso dagli altri. -

We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy.

The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality.

Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like the Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands?