Quotes About Materialism

We look to the accumulation of sensory pleasures to give our lives meaning. We have the ability now to consume anything we want and this capacity far exceeds our actual needs. With so much at our fingertips, a kind of gluttony pervades our mind-sets.

If he wasn't careful he'd turn into one of those men who cared more about furniture than human beings. He'd end up living with someone else who cared more about furniture than human beings and they'd lead a life which looked perfectly normal from the outside but was, in truth, a kind of living death that left your heart looking like a raisin. Or

Your materialism will make you suffer terribly not only at the end but also on the way.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet

You can be rich by having more than you need, or by needing less than you have.

Many people have a lot of money but not much lifestyle. They spend their lives watching numbers accumulate in a bank account and miss out on the joy and enjoyment they can create and share along the way.

Money is simply a vehicle for trying to meet our needs, and not just our financial needs.

when it comes to money, delusions that you're better than everybody else can kill you.

If he should wish it, she would make no difficulty of parting with the things around her. Of what concern were the prettinesses of life to one whose inner soul was hampered with such ugliness?

especially winter matches. They depend for their charm on the same substantial attractions: instead of heart beating to heart in sympathetic unison, purse chinks to purse. The rich new furniture of the new abode is looked to instead of the rapture of a pure embrace. The new carriage is depended on rather than the new heart's companion; and the first bright gloss, prepared by the upholsterer's hands, stands in lieu of the rosy tints which young love lends to his true votaries.

Having a comfortable allowance from his father, he could devote the whole proceeds of his curacy to violet gloves and unexceptionable neck ties.

Perché una libertà fossilizzata, materializzata, dogmatizzata diventa una schiavitù, e gli uomini, rimanendo indifferenti alla notizia dell'avvenimento, documentarono la loro liberazione dalla schiavitù del mito cristiano, del materialismo cristiano.

P]eople don't want freedom. They only want to consume. They look at the commercials, totally captivated, and get into debt so they can buy everything.

The materialists." "The head of General Motors or the woman buying groceries at the supermarket?" "Both. They both contribute to the erosion of those parts of life that are healthy, benevolent, and in harmony with nature. They are the water that cuts away at the sandy bank of our existence, making our foothold on this planet increasingly precarious.

As for the life of money-making, it is one of constraint, and wealth manifestly is not the good we are seeking, because it is for use, that is, for the sake of something further:

And it will often happen that a man with wealth in the form of coined money will not have enough to eat; and what a ridiculous kind of wealth is that which even in abundance will not save you from dying with hunger!

The avarice of mankind is insatiable.

Meat may go up in price — it has done — but books won't. Admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth will remain quite low. The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along Pall Mall at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit and of kisses — these things are unaffected by the machinations of trusts and the hysteria of stock exchanges.

No Utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart. Jan

cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime

You can put them in a room with QVC and they'll be as happy as clams." "QVC?" the demons said in unison. Simi looked at her watch. "It Diamonique time, too. Where's a TV?" Sin

Horror is made of such base material—so easily rejected or dismissed—that it may be hard to accept my postulate that within the genre lies one of the last refuges of spirituality in this, our materialistic world. But it is a fact that, through the ages, most storytellers have had to resort to the fantastic in order to elevate their discourse to the level of parable.

Money on paper is not even paper money," my mother says….

A man is only flesh and blood, after all; you can't fill a stomach with words.