Debbie Millman Quotes

Pride is what you can afford or think you can afford.

I prefer buying things and figuring out where to put them later than regretting not buying them.

What we buy, and pay for, is part of ourselves.

I often buy things, feel a little guilty, but then think that it's so worth it.

People look at Instagram and say they want money, they want this, they want that.

It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.

I've seen a lot of people in my life base their self-worth on what job they book or don't book, what car they drive, or whether they can afford a house deposit or not.

Modern man's happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments.

Being pretty successful, I can, of course, afford some luxuries. But I realize again and again how we have to disillusion ourselves of the idea that these things are going to give us real satisfaction.

Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body

The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself.

Our obsession with material things and lack of self-worth is evident in our need for an abundance of momentary luxuries and must-have amenities that have no true value for real, man. And I mean, we do it just to impress people that could care less if your children or your children's children have anything left to show for your life after you gone.

Your name or your body, what is dearer? Your body or your wealth, what is worthier?

I used to think that having many material things would increase one's stock of happiness. I found that to be completely untrue. The trappings don't make the man at all.

You may get an emotional thrill when you first buy something, but emotions are fickle. You buy that one thing you think will complete your happiness, but after awhile the feeling goes away and you have to go to the next thing. You just keep going from purchase to purchase looking for the one thing that will finally satisfy. But stuff can't satisfy.

The world will try to tell you that you need stuff to be somebody. Don't listen

Possessions only provide temporary happiness.

The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.

Material possessions, in themselves, are good. We would not survive for long without money, clothing and shelter. We must eat in order to stay alive. Yet if we are greedy, if we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, then we make our possessions into a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.

Our sense of self-worth is the single most important determinant of the health, abundance, and joy we allow into our lives.

Human beings consider themselves satisfied only compared to some other condition. A man who has owned nothing but a bicycle all of his life feels suddenly wealthy the moment he buys an automobile...But this happy sensation wears off. After a while the car becomes just another thing that he owns. Moreover, when his neighbor next door buys two cars, in an instant our man feels wretchedly poor and deprived.

Watching too much TV can triple our hunger for more possessions, while reducing our personal contentment by about 5 percent for every hour a day we watch.

I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.