Quotes About Materialism

Objects mimic in a material dimension what we require in a psychological one. We need to rearrange our minds but are lured towards new shelves. We buy a cashmere cardigan as a substitute for the counsel of friends. We

We need panels of gold and lapis, windows of coloured glass and gardens of immaculately raked gravel in order to stay true to the sincerest parts of ourselves.

We may be happy with little when we have come to expect little. And we may be miserable with much when we have been taught to expect everything.

A thought provoking number of the world's most intelligent people have disdained any interest in decoration and design, equating contentment with discarnate and invisible matters instead.

even if the whole of the man-made world could, through relentless effort and sacrifice, be modelled to rival St Mark's Square, even if we could spend the rest of our lives in the Villa Rotonda or the Glass House, we would still often be in a bad mood. 7.

Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we seek something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources.

La gente, aveva concluso Dusty, può fare a meno di tante cose; il problema è che non riesce a non andare a comprarle.

Contentment is not achieved by having stuff. It is achieved by enjoying the stuff you have.

There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

Children starve while boots costing many thousands of dollars leave their mark upon the surface of the moon. We have labored long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.

There is more to life than the material world. The truth most painful to the heart is that which makes the spirit stronger. And it is the strength of the spirit that will be needed when the physical crisis is over.

For those whose outlook is limited to the material realm, contentment and security must be measured in terms of material abundance. But for those who have learned to look in faith to God, there is another Source, inexhaustible and unfluctuating.

Shopping Malls: Modern cathedrals to spending money. Theyre designed to disorientate us and make us stay longer than we need to. Every brick is there to manipulate us to buy.

Last December I saw an advertisement outside an electronics store. There was a little boy, delirious with delight, surrounded by computers, stereos, and other gadgets. The text read: "We know what your child wants for Christmas." I stared at the poster, then said to no one in particular, "What your child wants for Christmas is your love, but if he can't get that, he'll settle for a bunch of electronic crap.

Within this culture wealth is measured by one's ability to consume and destroy.

Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed.

Krishna offers Arjuna two things: what he is and what he has. Arjuna chooses what Krishna is. Duryodhana is happy with what Krishna has. This divide between him and his, me and mine, what one is and what one has, is the difference between seeking the soul and being satisfied with matter.

Unlike the unenlightened householder, for whom material life is either a burden or an indulgence, Krishna embodies the enlightened householder: he who lives as a householder but thinks like a hermit, is engaged in everything but possessive of nothing.

The Veda says that as long as we do not accept life for what it is, as long as we try to control and change things, there will always be conflict. Conflict ends when we realize that beyond tangible material reality, there is intangible spiritual reality.

The makara is often confused with magara, the crocodile, due to their similar sounding names. The crocodile is a metaphor for worldly attachments that entrap us. While the makara refers to the bounty of material life, the magara is a warning of the perils of materialism.

If I am what I own, then I cling to what I have to secure my value in the world. And when you try to take it from me, I feel violated, for my identity is attached to my property.

The gap between 'what is mine' and 'what is not mine' is an artificial construct, not a natural phenomenon that is created and can be destroyed by the human mind. The

Animals fight to defend their bodies. Humans curse to defend their imagination of themselves. This imagined notion of who we are, and how others are supposed to see us, is called aham. Aham constantly seeks validation from the external world. When that is not forthcoming it becomes insecure. Aham makes humans accumulate things; through things we hope people will look upon us as we imagine ourselves.

Much of what passes for gratitude today appears to be a sort of secular prosperity gospel.