Quotes About Materialism

[On America:] Of nothing are you allowed to get the real odor or the real savor. Everything is sterilized and wrapped in cellophane.

Disregard females, acquire currency

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

I know it is more agreeable to walk upon carpets than to lie upon dungeon floors, I know it is pleasant to have all the comforts and luxuries of civilization; but he who cares only for these things is worth no more than a butterfly, contented and thoughtless, upon a morning flower; and who ever thought of rearing a tombstone to a last summer's butterfly?

Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.

Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless.

In actuality, it was like the homes of all people who are not really rich but who want to look rich, and therefore end up looking like one another: it had damasks, ebony, plants, carpets, and bronzes, everything dark and gleaming—all the effects a certain class of people produce so as to look like people of a certain class. And his place looked so much like the others that it would never have been noticed, though it all seemed quite exceptional to him.

In reality it was just what is usually seen in the houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich, and therefore succeed only in resembling others like themselves: there are damasks, dark wood, plants, rugs, and dull and polished bronzes -- all the things people of a certain class have in order to resemble other people of that class. His house was so like the others that it would never have been noticed, but to him it all seemed to be quite exceptional.

Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast away.

You live in better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you are very likely to lose all you have. You know the proverb, 'Loss and gain are brothers twain.' It often happens that people who are wealthy one day are begging their bread the next.

At first, in the bustle of building and settling down, Pahom was pleased with it all, but when he got used to it he began to think that even here he had not enough land.

Money, in itself, is evil. And therefore he who gives money gives evil.

And people strive not for the good in life, but for goods they can call their own

But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else's that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive.

Ninguém está satisfeito com os bens que possui, mas todos estão satisfeitos com a inteligência que têm.

Bütün kad?nlar erkeklerden daha maddecidir. Biz a?ktan muazzam bir ?ey yapar?z, onlarsa her zaman terre-a-terre.

wealth, power, and life—all that men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any worth has so only by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.

There was not a single cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life.

En realidad era lo mismo que suele haber en todas las casas de personas que no son muy ricas, pero que quieren parecerse a los ricos, con lo cual sólo logran parecerse entre sí.

Cada día el mundo se vuelve más egoísta y feo. Hay odio entre las personas, entre las clases, entre los pueblos; porque todo el mundo está buscando encontrar bienes materiales, la posesión de la cual no es nada

La sociedad de consumo convirtió a la humanidad en una inmensa multitud materialista a la cual la simple idea de sacrificio le hacía temblar. Las fiestas, la televisión, la avidez de tenerlo todo, de poder pagar todo lo que se ve, de no someterse nunca a ninguna moral limitativa, de incluso hartarse de los ancianos (carga pesada) o de los niños (obstáculos), han enviado a la civilización occidental al declive

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap.

I needed so much To have nothing to touch I've always been greedy that way

Is life's span so dear and are home comforts so engrossing as to be purchased with my unfaithfulness and dry-eyed prayerlessness? At the final bar of God, shall the perishing millions accuse me of materialism coated with a few Scripture verses? ''Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, GIVE ME REVIVAL in my soul and in my church and in my nation—or GIVE ME DEATH!