Quotes About Materialism

luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.

We hardly notice how ubiquitous our stuff is until we have to move it to a new house.

Consumerism has worked very hard, with the help of popular psychology ('Just do it') to convince people that indulgence is good for you, whereas frugality is self-oppression. It has succeeded. We

Like the elite of ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building pyramids. Only the names, shapes and sizes of these pyramids change from one culture to the other. They may take the form, for example, of a suburban cottage with a swimming pool and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable view.

Nothing is good enough; we must know and have it all."

The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system

Modern materialists and religious extremists alike lack the spiritual animistic reverence for non-human beings that every culture once understood as a given.

Scott-there's nothing in the world I want but you-and your precious love. All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live in a sordid, colorless existence-because you'd soon love less-and less-and I'd do anything-anything-to keep your heart for my own-I don't want to live-I want to love first and live incidentally.

I felt as if I were in an exiled and floating world, isolated from all necessities of life except the one of buying things.

The problem with people nowadays is that a 'necessity' is any luxury your neighbor happens to have.

Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the 'gotta have it' scale.

I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating.

Maybe money can't buy love - but it can get you practically everything else.

Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed. We use it for a while, then pass it on.

painting was not so much an art movement as a mission to free people from material concerns.

A bonnet costs twenty dollars, and implies a shawl and gown to match. A bonnet to one wife, with shawl and gown to match, implies the like to every other wife." The man paused, shook his head ruefully and concluded: "This taste for female finery is breaking up our Mormon homes. Brigham Young may soon be the only man in Salt Lake City rich enough to clothe a dozen wives."28

I imagined that a better world would be less complicated, less involved, and with less need to mass produce doorknobs and lock sets, electric outlets, power cords, frozen chicken wings, packages of steak, rubber bands, and a million little foam earbuds that slip over the broadcasting end of an iPod. I'd stand staring at Jenna's room, the recycling porch, and imagine what my life would be like if I could squeeze all my worldly possessions into a space like that.

Attachment to money will always create insecurity no matter how much money you have in the bank.

Karma means always wanting more of what won't get you anywhere in the first place.

La Ley del Desapego dice que para adquirir cualquier cosa en el universo físico tienes que renunciar a tu apego hacia él.

re-examine everything you think will get you ahead in life—money, possessions, status, accomplishments—and see them as a source of suffering

poder basado en el ego sólo durará tanto como esas cosas duren. Tan pronto como el título, el trabajo y el dinero se vayan, así se irá el poder.

As things stand, most people approach life from the bottom up, giving their material needs priority.

What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?