Quotes About Possessions

What a rich man gives and what he consumes, that is his real worth.

No man takes with him to Hades all his exceeding wealth.

I am He Who teaches man to despise earthly possessions and to loathe present things, to ask after the eternal, to hunger for heaven, to fly honors and to bear with scandals, to place all hope in Me, to desire nothing apart from Me, and to love Me ardently above all things.

If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation.

They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people. They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, fucking, drinking, art - poetry for intense emotion, the music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one's person and possessions.

For every new thing that I buy, I have to throw something out.

I'm not a materialistic person at all, but I always want the next thing; I've got a nice toolbox, but I still want another set of spanners.

There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but when you are trying to buy nice things to be happy, you are going to hurt. It's not going to work.

You know when you first get rich, and you, like, just buy everything that you see? I did that for several years. And I have sheds full of things, maybe sometimes nine copies of the same thing.

When you have so many things, and you have no idea why, you think, 'Maybe I'm supposed to do things for other people.'

At that age I once stabbed my best friend, Fred, with a pair of pinking shears in the base of the neck, enraged because he had been given the comprehensive sixty-four-crayon Crayola box—including the gold and silver crayons—and would not let me look closely at the box to see how Crayola had stabilized the built-in crayon sharpener under the tiers of crayons.

I suddenly had a little epiphany: all the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal.

When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, Leo Gursky is survived by an apartment full of shit

Because you can get free of everything except the space where things have been

There were books everywhere. There were pens, and a blue glass vase, an ash tray from the Dolder Grand in Zürich, the rusted arrow of a weather vane, a little brass hourglass, sand dollars on the windowsill, a pair of binoculars, and empty wine bottle that served as a candle holder, wax melted down the neck. I touch this thing and that. At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions.

Wat er op het eind van je overblijft zijn je bezittingen. Misschien is het me daarom nooit gelukt iets weg te gooien.

It's always best to look ahead and not backwards. Possessions are not important. Think of those beautiful porcelain pieces I had. Before they came to me, they had all passed through the hands of many people, surviving wars and natural disasters. I got them only because someone else lost them. While I had them, I enjoyed them; now some other people will enjoy them. Life itself is transitory. Possessions are not important.

after cash or valuables.

I have more CDs than 99 percent of America, but fewer CDs than 40 percent of my friends; if an acquaintance has more CDs than me, I feel intimidated and emasculated. I think about my CDs a lot. I find it oddly reassuring to look at them when I'm intoxicated.

The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions, because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit.

The more things you own, the more they own you.

The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.