Quotes About Material Goods

#1. We are shallow because we have become enslaved by gross materialism, the glitter of gold and its equivalents, for which reason we think that only the material goods of this earth can satisfy us and we must therefore grab as much as can while we are able.

F. Sionil Jose

#2. On the other hand, others felt that the world was a state of probation where material goods were to be used in a spirit of stewardship, as loans from the Almighty, and where the main work of life is loving devotion to God and to man.

Alan W. Watts

#3. Jesus, it is true, shows no personal interest in gain, but he does speak of treasure in heaven and even of "mansions" as an inducement to follow him. Is it not further true that all religions down the ages have shown a keen interest in the amassment of material goods in the real world?

Christopher Hitchens

#4. Instead of trying to understand who we really are, we reach for the "Real Thing". And when the goods we buy fail to match up to those deep desires, instead of giving up on material goods, we just keep banging our heads against the wall and buying more.

James Wallman

#5. Hold material goods and wealth on a flat palm and not in a clenched fist.

Alistair Begg

#6. In technological development, in production of material goods and creature comforts, we've challenged the very gods, but psychologically, emotionally, we're scarcely more than chimpanzees with bulldozers, baboons with big bombs.

Tom Robbins

#7. Material goods consist of useful material things, and of all rights to hold, or use, or derive benefits from material things, or to receive them at a future time.

Alfred Marshall

#8. Cross-generational sex is the phenomenon in which young girls are given material goods in exchange for sex. All girls are vulnerable to it, particularly orphans.

Ashley Judd

#9. Misery is not measured in the material goods but in the psychic strength of an individual.

Daniel Marques

#10. What plethora of material goods can possibly atone for a waking life so humanly belittling, if not degrading, as the push-button tasks left to human performers?

Lewis Mumford

#11. The direction we are going in at this moment is the negation of material goods as being important and the great importance of spiritual values and sensations. Permissiveness, if you will. There is tremendous talk of sex and bi-sexuality.

Emilio Pucci

#12. The drop in living standards most people would have to accept to reduce climate change significantly would still leave us far better off than previous generations, so it's inexcusable that we find it so hard to renounce material goods.

Raimond Gaita

#13. The first approximation in this future that we're looking at is that everyone will be physically well off. They will have a great abundance in material goods, and I think that will soften some of the conflicts we see now.

Ralph Merkle

#14. Piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Ronald Reagan

#15. My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of material goods is regulated.

Michael Polanyi

#16. Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today.

Graham Hancock

#17. The oppressor is truly repressed. Their poverty is existential, often surrounded by an abundance of material goods. (Leonardo Boff, p. 179)

Mev Puleo

#18. Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

Alain De Botton

#19. I believe that the average person can help a lot, not by giving material goods but by participating, by being part of the discussion, by being truly concerned about what is going on in the world.

Sebastiao Salgado

#20. No matter what you might be going through right now, God has blessed you far more than you probably imagine-not just with material goods, but with family, with freedom and with the ability to enjoy His gifts.

Billy Graham

#21. My illness is one often characterized by dramatic overspending - in my case through frenzied shopping sprees, credit card abuse, excessive hoarding of unnecessary material goods and bizarre generosity with family, friends and even strangers.

Andy Behrman

#22. I feel terrible about corporate greed. Growing up in a household that was a little more humble and didn't put so much emphasis on money and material goods, I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders.

Chloe Sevigny

#23. Refraining from stealing: care with material goods. Undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart.

Jack Kornfield

#24. Destitution and excessive luxury develop apparently the same ideals, the same marauding attitude towards mankind, the intensity of struggle for material goods,
surely showing how perfect is the meeting of extremes.

Alice James

#25. Poverty in America today leads not only to anxiety, unhappiness, discomfort and a lack of material goods. It leads to death. Poverty in America today is a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people.

Bernie Sanders

#26. One's own self or material goods, which has more worth?
Loss (of self) or possession (of goods), which is the greater evil?
He who loves most, spends most,
He who hoards much loses much

Laozi

#27. The ecological problem of our times demands a radical reevaluation of how we see the entire world; it demands a different interpretation of matter and the world, a new attitude of humankind toward nature, and a new understanding of how we acquire and make use of our material goods.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I Of Constantinople

#28. "Pursuit of happiness" implies that we're running after happiness and happiness is running away from us. It also implies that happiness is somewhere out there, in material goods, which we have to pursue, whereas I believe that it is an illusion happiness is not out there, it is within us.

Satish Kumar

#29. Most people will see declining returns [due to inflation]. One of the great defenses if you're worried about inflation is not to have a lot of silly needs in your life - you don't need a lot of material goods.

Charlie Munger

#30. ...Material goods have gained an increasing and finally inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history.

Max Weber

#31. Love is a brilliant illustration of a principle everywhere discoverable: namely, that human reason lives by turning the friction of material forces into the light of ideal goods.

George Santayana

#32. If there is a void in your life then you will never fill it with cash!

Stephen Richards

#33. It is investment, i.e. the increased production of material wealth in the shape of capital goods, which alone increases national wealth.

John Maynard Keynes

#34. Start from Raw ... As even Finished Goods ... 'the Perfect' are incomplete and impossible without Raw Material.

Mayank Sharma

#35. [I]t is things that make us happy when conversation begins to reveal itself as a paltry substitute.

Rick Moody

#36. Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.

Ayn Rand

#37. What was worth saving? Not as much as you'd anticipated, once you got into the spirit of paperlessness. Pile up those mine carts with fool's gold. The thing that's worth keeping is the thing you do next.

Nick Paumgarten

#38. Being 'poor in spirit' (a Christian virtue) means being detached from things - being able to possess goods without being possessed by them. It meansputting people ahead of possessions - and seeing material things only as instruments for serving God and the needs of others.

James Stenson

#39. The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#40. Humanity seems bent on creating a world economy primarily based on goods that take no material form. In doing so, we may be eliminating any predictable connection between creators and a fair reward for the utility others may find in their works.

John Perry Barlow

#41. Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise
the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods ... There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship, but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things.

Henry Ward Beecher