Materialism Quotes
517 quotes
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
"Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."(Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction), November 17, 2010)"
"To be invisible, paint yourself with the direct shade of zero. Leave nothing to chance, by taking nothing with you wherever you go."
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
"The reality of loving God is loving him like he's a Superhero who actually saved you from stuff rather than a Santa Claus who merely gave you some stuff."
"If money’s the god people worship, I’d rather go worship the devil instead."
"Nin knew how much humans loved money, riches, and material things—though he never really could understand why. The more technologically advanced the human species got, the more isolated they seemed to become, at the same time. It was alarming, how humans could spend entire lifetimes engaged in all kinds of activities, without getting any closer to knowing who they really were, inside."
"[When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996:]If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion, why do you not believe in materialistic science, which has an unparalleled record of fulfilled prophecy? Consider, for example, eclipses."
"There is no indisputable proof for the big bang,"said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?"
"The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen."
"It is easier for one to take risks and to chase his dreams with a mindset that he has nothing to lose. In this lies the immense passion, the great advantage of avoiding a materialistic, pleasure-filled way of life."
"The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation."
"Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man."
"Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score."
"We're all to driven by materialism. Obsessed with success. With money. With trying to impress people who'll never be impressed."
"....I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best.(tr Jowett)"
"The successful cannot be unhappy -- it was a contradiction in terms."
"A netizen speaks normally about one’s life’s first priority or preference through the profile picture; it’s often the person seen therein, but it could also be the product on which s/he lays the hand on or seen as an inset in this selfish and materialistic world."
"We are generally treated based on how much or little we have, earn, or know—or seem to have, earn, or know."
"A wedding is a ceremony men fund with money they know they don’t have … to prove the love they think they have."
"Since science is essentially objective, involving the study of how things actually are, "materialism" would therefore seem to be its antithesis, since its starting point is the desire to impose upon the natural world a particular and limited way of looking at it."
Melanie Phillips, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power
"How good something is should never be determined by its cost, designer, origin, or its perceived value by others."
"Everything that I hold will eventually be gone. Subsequently, the quality of my life will depend on whether I choose to appreciate those things ‘now’ or wait until ‘then."
"We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives the"
"Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious."
"Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts."
"True beauty is measured by the number of pearls within you, not those around your neck."
Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
"It’s the poet we love in Caeiro, not the philosopher. What we really get from these poems is a childlike sense of life, with all the direct materiality of the child’s mind, and all the vital spirituality of hope and increase that exist in the body and soul of nescient childhood. Caeiro’s work is a dawn that wakes us up and quickens us; a more that material, more than anti-spiritual dawn. It’s an abstract effect, pure vacuum, nothingness."
"Eyes blinded by the fog of thingscannot see truth.Ears deafened by the din of thingscannot hear truth.Brains bewildered by the whirl of thingscannot think truth.Hearts deadened by the weight of thingscannot feel truth.Throats choked by the dust of thingscannot speak truth."
"But I do know we’re deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted."
"COMING FORTH INTO THE LIGHTI was born the dayI thought:What is?What was?AndWhat if?I was transformed the dayMy ego shattered,And all the superficial, materialThings that matteredTo me before,Suddenly ceasedTo matter.I really came into beingThe day I no longer cared aboutWhat the world thought of me,Only on my thoughts forChanging the world."
Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
"She chose to look at her surroundings where they "think missionary" mind-set."
"It is wiser to love who you are than what you want."
"Having something is not always better than not having it."
Beth Kempton, Freedom Seeker: Live More. Worry Less. Do What You Love.
"The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury."
"Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible."
"In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money."
"The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them."
"When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor."
"The death of a billionaire is worth more to the media than the lives of a billion poor people."
"An expensive coffin does not decrease the deceased’s chances of going to hell."
"Getting through life without a lot of money, possessions, and/or friends is admirable, especially if it is by choice."
"The second most dangerous thing about money is that it leaves most of the people who have a lot of it with the unshakable belief that they are intelligent and well informed. The most dangerous thing about it is that it leaves most of the people who do not have a lot of money with the very same belief."
"Some people will insult your intelligence by suddenly being nice or nicer to you once you make it … or they think you have."
"Most of the very few people who would choose a good heart over riches would eventually use that to either make a lot of money, or attract men or women who are rich."
"Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. (...) Even when she was winning, her civilian statesmen, her High Command, and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments; it was pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit."
Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture
"Isn’t materialism the cause of much that is evil in the land of mortal souls?"
"But in the wake of 'Bullet,' all the guys wanted to know was, 'How's it doing? How's it selling?' How to tell them I didn't give a flying fuck how it was doing in the marketplace, that what I cared about was how it was doing in the reader's heart?"
"All the wealth in the world is nothing, pointless - of no true value - if you yourself feel worthless."
"The only way of life satisfying the need of all times must be motivated by incentives and rewards – materially, morally and spiritually because motivation for work is produced by incentives and rewards only, an aspect built into the fundamental specification of human nature itself. Any prescription not recognising this important aspect of life is bound to fail in the life-styles of human beings."
Mohammed Ali Muhiyaddin, A Comparative Study of the Religions of Today
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