Richard Foster Quotes

There is a spiritual hunger in the world today - and it cannot be satisfied by better cars on longer credit terms.

I have tried the fancy, superficial life in my past, but I quickly learned that diamonds are not my best friend.

We've got the most prosperous culture in human history and we've also got the biggest spiritual hole in human history. People are saying, "I can't fill the hole with money. I can't fill it with alcohol, or drugs, or sex, so what do I need to fill it with?"

That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession.

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

Anything you think you "must have" usually comes to own you.

The more wants a man has, the less freedom.

High thinking is inconsistent with a complicated material life based on high speed and imposed on us by mammon worship.

I don't think people today need to derive security from possessions.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.

The things you used to own, now they own you.

Do not worry! Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause anxiety. The heart which clings to goods receives with them the choking burden of worry. Worry collects treasures, and treasures produce more worries. We desire to secure our lives with earthly goods; we want our worrying to make us worry-free, but the truth is the opposite. The chains which bind us to earthly goods, the clutches which hold the goods tight, are themselves worries.

People like to own things.

If we feel inwardly strong, we will have no need or desire to speak ill of others.

Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.

He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret.

Money and riches don't mean nothing to me. I don't care nothing about being no rich individual. I'm not living for glory or for fame; all this is doomed for destruction. You got it today, tomorrow it's gone. I got bigger things on my mind than that. I got Islam on my mind.

Consumerism thrives on emotional voids.

I wanna take it deeper than money, pussy, vacation and influence a generation that's lacking in patience.

I was lucky enough to have had great success early on in life; to have had all the things the material world can offer. And yet, I realized that what I had actually neglected was the more spiritual side of myself, which has always been there. But it's easy for us in our culture to become consumed in a sense by materialism. Now materialism is fine. We live in a material world. I'm not saying that beautiful things don't enhance our lives. But, in our culture, we're never happy.

I'm not technically rich, but I do have a lot of s**t that I don't need, that I refuse to share with others.

My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.

We have a largely materialistic lifestyle characterized by a materialistic culture. However, this only provides us with temporary, sensory satisfaction, whereas long-term satisfaction is based not on the senses but on the mind. That’s where real tranquility is to be found. And peace of mind turns out to be a significant factor in our physical health too.