Ludwig von Mises Quotes

Materialism blinds us to our spiritual poverty. Jesus rebuked the Laodicean Christians because although they were materially wealthy, they were desperately poor in the things of God . Puritan Richard Baxter said, "When men prosper in the world, their minds are lifted up with their estates, and they can hardly believe that they are so ill, while they feel themselves so well."

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

In a country of such recent civilization as ours, whose almost limitless treasures of material wealth invite the risks of capital and the industry of labor, it is but natural that material interests should absorb the attention of the people to a degree elsewhere unknown. But all the more on this account it is necessary to provide a powerful check and counterpoise, lest the pursuit of gain be enhanced to an importance never rightfully its own, lest, in proportion as we enhance our comfort and well-being, comfort and well-being become the main objects of existence, and life's grander motives and meanings be forgotten. We have already transgressed the limit of safety

Biblical convictions are essential for spiritual growth and maturity. What is ironic today is that people often have strong convictions about weak issues (football, fashion, etc.) while having weak convictions about major issues (what is right and what is wrong).

I've come to the realization that a lot of our problems are because of a dearth of spiritual values.

I should like to bring a case to trial: Prosperity versus Beauty, Cash registers teetering in a balance against the comfort of the soul.

We live in a world of breathtaking material plenty. That has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.

To have a free, peaceful and prosperous world we must be ever stronger particularly in the spiritual things....It is American belief in decency and justice and progress and the value of individual liberty because of the rights conferred on each of us by our Creator that willcarry us through.... There must be something in the heart as well as the head.

The basic idea underlying religion is to create an atmosphere for the spiritual development of the individual. This being the situation, it is clear that you cannot develop your personality at all in Hinduism.

Without preservation and cultivation of the spiritual, your material success will be as ashes in your mouths.

Ethical existence [is] the highest manifestation of spirituality.

The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today?

It is always so much easier to be moral than it is to be spiritual.

It's tempting to think that decisions that are not life-and-death are therefore unimportant, and that the little compromises we make don't matter to our bottom line or our spiritual selves. How many of us are tempted, in business, to make a less-than-ethical decision? To appropriate someone else's idea or fudge some numbers? We have to remember that maintaining our ethical and spiritual selves is absolutely linked with achieving the degree of success we're working toward.

The function of the machine is to liberate man from brute burdens, and release his energies to the building of his intellectual and spiritual powers for conquests in the fields of thought and higher action.

Parents now are concerned about the moral and spiritual diseases. These can have terrible complications when standards and values are abandoned. We must all take protective measures.

Money has never yet made anyone rich.

We want spiritual principles to be more than beautiful abstractions; we want them to actually transform our lives.

Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.

I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve.

If dirt were dollars, I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

I began my pilgrimage on the first of January in 1953. It is my spiritual birthday of sorts. It was a period in which I was merged with the whole. No longer was I a seed buried under the ground, but I felt as a flower reaching out effortlessly toward the sun.

In the sublimest flights of the soul, rectitude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown.

In this century we have made remarkable material progress, but basically we are the same as we were thousands of years ago. Our spiritual needs are still very great.