Quotes about Materialism

You begin to notice all the props surrounding these people, and you begin to understand how props define us and comfort us, and show us what we value and what we need, and who we think we are.

Because a human is a someone and not a something, the source of human life must also be a Someone - not the blind, automatic forces of nature, as philosophies like naturalism and materialism tell us.

What I know for sure: Having the best things is no substitute for having the best life. When you can let go of the desire to acquire, you know you are really on your way.

I loved exceedingly to converse on religious subjects, indeed I took no pleasure in any worldly concerns, and found all worldly possessions vain.

How much are the Lord's people losing today because of their acceptance of the world's favors! Unto how few can the Lord.

I fear that in this thing many rich people deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but never using them; making bricks, but never building.

The only condition necessary for us to break out of our material limitations and attain spiritual life is that we accept the life-giving warmth of God's spirit, just as the chick receives its mother's warmth. Without that warmth, we will not take on the nature of the Spirit, and we may die without ever hatching out of this material body.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

And that almost everyone was struggling to wake up, to be loved, and not feel so afraid all the time. That's what the cars, degrees, booze, and drugs were about.

The few men who possess the wealth of the material things of the earth at the present time are not truly happy.

When we attach value to things that aren't love—the money, the car, the house, the prestige—we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless.

Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love—the money, the car, the house, the prestige—we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're nothing.