Quotes About Materialism

When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings . To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings , or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke , Tracy , and Stewart . { Letter to John Adams , from Monticello, 15 August 1820 }

Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it.

The books and magazines streamed in. He could buy them all, they piled up around him and even while he read, the number of those still to be read disturbed him. … they stood in rows, weighing down his life like a possession which he did not succeed in subordinating to his personality.

The accouterments of life were so rich and varied, so elaborated, that almost no place at all was left for life itself. Each and every accessory was so costly and beautiful that it had an existence above and beyond the purpose it was meant to serve – confusing the observer and absorbing attention.

Terwijl ik dit opschrijf, zie ik het beeld voor me van een armzalige bedelaar die voor de etalage van een juwelier naar de glans van een kostbaar kleinood met edelstenen staart. Die man zal zich zelf nooit toestaan de wens uit te spreken dat hij dit sieraad wil bezitten; want alleen al de gedachte aan dat verlangen zou lachwekkend en onmogelijk zijn en zou hem voor zichzelf een voorwerp van spot maken.

We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.

It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God – acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him and dependent, by His will, on material things, too.

If what most people take for granted were really true—if all you needed to be happy was to grab everything and see everything and investigate every experience and then talk about it, I should have been a very happy person, a spiritual millionaire, from the cradle even until now. If happiness were merely a matter of natural gifts, I would never have entered a Trappist monastery when I came to the age of a man.

our material riches unfortunately imply a spiritual, cultural, and moral poverty that are perhaps far greater than we see.

We cannot possess things–we die and they are lost, or they are stolen, or they perish. But more than that, we ourselves cannot even enjoy the things themselves. To think we can is idolatry.

Before we can see that created things (especially material) are unreal, we must see clearly that they are real.

The poorest man in a religious community is not necessarily the one who has the fewest objects assigned to him for his use. Poverty is not merely a matter of not having things. It is an attitude which leads us to renounce some of the advantages which come from the use of things.

Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.

they wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is. - utopia

Look at it, every day more lusers than users, keyboards and screens turning into nothin but portals to Web sites for what Management wants everybody addicted to, shopping games, jerking off, streaming endless garbage-

America is a country without death. Everything is shiny and new to make you forget such a thing exists.

To be a saint does not exclude fine dresses nor a beautiful house.

Joe had long resented how American culture had taught him to want. There were so many things pictured in ads, displayed in store windows: stereo TVs, personality dolls, electronic board games, inboard-outboard motors, personalized bowling balls, graphite baitcasting rods. You were taught to want it all.

I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers, buying more bits and pieces—two or more cars, two homes and all that fills them—and outfitting one's body for a wide variety of identities: business person, homebody, amateur athlete, traveler, theater or sports fan. Things exercise a certain tyranny over us.

They wanted a girl who knew what it was like to acquire things out of amusement rather than need. Who sympathized with those whose lives were so pleasantly arranged that they hungered for beauty and meaning rather than food. The

People who say that money can't buy happiness just don't know where to shop.

Oh, joy, Christmas Eve. By this time tomorrow, millions of Americans, knee-deep in tinsel and wrapping paper, will utter those heartfelt words: "Is this all I got?"

The rich of this world will vanish like smoke, and no memory of their past pleasures will remain. But even in their lifetime they do not enjoy them without bitterness, weariness and fear, for the very things whence they derive their pleasures often carry with them the seeds of sorrow.

A dead man's shroud has no pockets.