Sarah Chayes Quotes

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.

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.

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.

...thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness?

Material things aren't important to me.

I think Los Angeles certainly grew out and grew up, but I don't think it matured. It lost the appeal and the hunger and the beauty of its adolescence and went straight to a middle-aged ugly, overfed monster seeking mindless pleasure and being obsessively acquisitive. It's so materialistic. It grew up, but it didn't mature.

False values begin with the worship of things.

The great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.

Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy.

You want the people to know, but you don't really want the things behind it. I have everything I ever wanted. I never wanted a big house. I never wanted a Ferrari. I mean, as I proceeded with the music, I started liking Ferraris...

Poor is the man who desires a lot

Materialism and spirituality are two pretty racquets with which charlatans in cap and gown make the same ball fly.

The numbing lists of things you were supposed to have as an American to make you happy, which ultimately, of course, don't. Those aren't the things that make you happy.

Sex and commerce are fine things, but man cannot live by Viagra and the Dow Jones alone. A life led collecting things and experiences in pursuit of happiness is not necessarily a bad life, but it's not a good life either. Too often, the Democrats act like the Party of Lust, and the Republicans the Party of Greed. Both are deadly sins that eat at the soul.

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.

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.

I do not believe making money in order to consume goods is mankind's sole purpose on this planet.

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.

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

Possessions only provide temporary happiness.

You may have occasion to possess or use material things, but the secret of life lies in never missing them.

We humans are more concerned with having than with being.

We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen.

If you're looking for happiness in things, you'll never find it.

We are living in a material world and I'm a material girl.