Peter McWilliams Quotes

I see what happens when one gets very attached to material things. That's just not what my life is.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.

I am totally unattached to material items.

Material things don't matter.

Very early on in life, I decided the hell with it: material things weren't for me. Christmas would come, and other kids would have all these presents, and it wouldn't bother me a bit.

The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.

When you don't have any money, any things, any house - if you are unattached, what is the difficulty in it? But when you have everything and you remain unattached - a beggar in the palace - then something very deep has been attained.

Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent.

With renunciation life begins.

I don't like to attach myself to material things.

Man must do his part and detach himself from created things.

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.

Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.

Other people have more than they need, I alone seem wanting.

Needing nothing really is the ultimate goal. And to have nothing to do with things.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

The less you need, the more you attract.

When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him... a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

The more wants a man has, the less freedom.

You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something.

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

The more you are possession oriented, the less happy you will be. The less happy you are, the farther away from the Divine, from prayer, from gratitude you will be. Be austere. Live with the necessary and forget about desires; they are fantasies in the mind, ripples in the lake. They only disturb you, they can never lead you to any contentment.

I wasn’t trying to invent better and better homes, but to show her that homes didn’t matter, we could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.