Ezra Taft Benson Quotes

Everybody in America is so money-hungry. It's like a rat race and even when you win you're still a freaking rat.

The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

Nothing retains less of desire in art, in science, than this will to industry, booty, possession.

Our idea of happiness, some of it, is very tied to the cult of celebrity: there is this golden, wonderful life that I want, and if I dress like that, I'm on my way there.

We've been raised to compete, to want more! More! More! It's a way of life. It's about greed.

I'm very focused on the world and my career and my Porsche turbo and making money and Stevie B. Inc. I'm just living according to the standards of the world.

I always tried to live my life as though nothing changed. People would say, 'You can have a Rolls-Royce'. I'd say to that, 'What do I want with a Rolls-Royce when I can have a Volkswagen or a bike?' Some people get carried away with the juice.

Fame and fortune and the interstate is great and fun, but it ain't life.

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.

We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other.

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative,they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.

Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership.

Comparing objects like cars, houses, clothes, and defining life according to those comparisons, instead of trying to discover the real reason for being alive.

Some people's measure of success is how much they can grab hold of and hold on to.

The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.

The materialistic idealism that governs American life, that on the one hand makes a chariot of every grocery wagon, and on the other a mere hitching post of every star, lets every man lead a very enticing double life.

We humans are more concerned with having than with being.

The world says: "You have needs - satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.

We are concerned with things. We are concerned with success. We are concerned with money. We are concerned with instrumentalities.

Here in the United States, we're consumed by our love of money and status. We think bigger is better, and if we can just get that promotion, all will be well with our souls. There's one fatal flaw to this mindset: it's all smoke and mirrors.

It was left for the present age to endow Covetousness with glamour on a big scale, and to give it a title which it could carry like a flag. It occurred to somebody to call it Enterprise. From the moment of that happy inspiration, Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back.

There is a strange and mighty race of people called the Americans who are rapidly becoming the coldest in the world because of this cruel, man-eating idol, lucre.

Consume more than you need This is the dream Make you pauper Or make you queen I won't die lonely I'll have it all prearranged A grave that's deep and wide enough For me and all my mountains o'things

It’s hard, in America, not to equate ‘happiness’ with ‘things’.

The newer people of this modern age are more eager to amass than to realize.