Henry David Thoreau Quotes

A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.

It's often hard for us to imagine going without some of our luxuries like travel, dining out, or Internet, much less our basic necessities like food and water. But try for a minute to imagine how life would be with such deprivations.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

He is a great simpleton who imagines that the chief power of wealth is to supply wants. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it creates more wants than it supplies.

I already own more than any human being needs.

Poverty wants much; but avarice, everything.

There's nothing wrong with having a desire to want nice things.

A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.

Beware of luxury! Beware of acquiring the taste and need for it, under the pretext of providing for the morrow.

Luxury destroys more efficiently than war.

Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things

The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed.

Sometimes you should have something you don't need but that you want.

I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.

There came into the world an unlimited abundance of everything people need. But people need everything except unlimited abundance.

Most of the things we buy are wants. And we call them needs, but they're wants.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

To be rich nowadays merely means to possess a large number of poor objects.

I'm not materialistic. I love clothes and all that stuff, but I don't need it to live.

How many BMWs do you need? How many Rolex watches you gonna wear in your lifetime, for crying out loud? What is it about that kind of desire? I don't understand it.

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want

Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast.

Ancient simplicity is gone...the people of today are satisfied with nothing but finery.