Quotes About Materialism

Preserving one's true nature is arduous—and the more so when one is weighed down with goods.

La ricchezza addobba spazi che poi lascia vuoti

We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our bodies belong to it. Not only my own body, but those of my friends, also of my dog and cat and horse, and of all the other people and animals. And this is my only means of communicating with them.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.

Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls too easily grow up to be punks who steal from candy stores, because they're used to getting whatever they want the easy way.

Dad said I had no respect for money and that if I didn't learn when I was little when was I going to learn? Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls at the drop of a hat turn into punks who steal from convenience stores, 'cos they wind up thinking they can have whatever they want, just like that. So instead of a Bart doll he bought me an ugly porcelain pig with a slot in its back, and now I'll grow up to be okay, now I won't turn into a punk.

If we are going to conquer materialism, we have to make the heartmind into a place in which the full range of human emotions can feel at home.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good, but people are beginning to suspect we have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty.

We care more for our possessions with which we hope to make our way in the world than with our thoughts and dreams which tell us who we are in the world.

The huge irony is that the more the gospel is offered in consumer terms, the more the consumers are disappointed.

Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

America leads the world at present in golden-calf production.

We live most days and most of the hours of those days in a world permeated with the making and purchasing of idols.

The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, "deny yourself" congregation.

When you grab all you can get, that's what happens: the more you get, the less you are.

Under capitalism, money occupies the ontological throne from which God has been evicted.

But I also like to shower my parents with presents. I bought them a beautiful car and a house.

Commodities have now penetrated the romantic bond so deeply that they have become the invisible and unacknowledged spirit reigning over romantic encounters.

I'm not a religious person, but I prefer God to money.

I remember when I got my first (and only) iPad - excitement filled the air as I opened the box and stared at what was essentially a big iPhone but without the phone part. I knew I really wanted it, and at the same time, I knew I didn't need it.

But I deal with this meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not to overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.

Footage of people camped out at Best Buy or elsewhere is not remotely a celebration. Rather, it's a reminder of just how economically distressed a large percentage of our populace is.

A change in external circumstances without inner renewal is a materialist's illusion, as though man were only a product of his social circumstance and nothing else.