Robert Burton Quotes

People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you're going to lose. You're just going to. Even if you get the money, you're not going to be happy.

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.

The folly of endless consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through materialism.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.

Nothing is more fallacious than wealth. It is a hostile comrade, a domestic enemy.

The world assumes that we are very happy with high mansions, fine carriages, servants and attendants, huge investments, and concubines. But he who is without the honor and strength of the soul can be anything but happy.

When I was making the most money at the top of my game, driving Bentleys and all that, I felt so existentially empty.

Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

If we understand the dangers of materialism, it will help liberate us to experience the joys of Christ-centered stewardship. Jesus speaks of the "deceitfulness of wealth" . The psalmist warns, "Though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them" . The dangers of materialism are far-reaching. We should not think that we're immune to the value-changing nature of wealth.

People have had to make up for their spiritual impoverishment by accumulating material things. When spiritual blessings come, material blessings seem unimportant. As long as we desire material things this is all we receive, and we remain spiritually impoverished.

... people don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful of goods and die without realizing their spiritual wealth.

Poor is the man who desires a lot

I would rather sit still in a state of peace on a stone than ride in the motor-car of a multi-millionaire and feel the peacelessness of the multi-millionaire poisoning me.

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.

God is waiting to satisfy us, yet His goodness will not satisfy us if we are already full of other things.

The greedy search for money or success will almost always lead men into unhappiness. Why? Because that kind of life makes them depend upon things outside themselves.

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing

Take a look at your own heart, and you will soon find out what has stuck to it and where your treasure is. It is easy to determine whether hearing the Word of God, living according to it, and achieving such a life gives you as much enjoyment and calls forth as much diligence from you as does accumulating and saving money and property.

Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight.

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

Their property held them in chains...chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their soul...If they stored up their treasure in heaven, they would not now have an enemy and a thief within their own household...They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.

You earn money, and one day money is there -- then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president -- then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life again says, 'What have you got?' You don't listen. You go on thinking of something else and something else and something else. Life is vast -- that's why many lives are wasted.