desire for possessions Quotes

Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.

He who is attached to things will suffer much.

Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.

The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can.but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame.

I make my share of mistakes, but one I never make is to underestimate the power of things. People imbued from childhood with the myth of the primacy of feeling seldom like to admit they really want things as much as they might want love, but my career has convinced me that plenty of them do. And some want things a lot worse than they want love.

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.

It was left for the present age to endow Covetousness with glamour on a big scale, and to give it a title which it could carry like a flag. It occurred to somebody to call it Enterprise. From the moment of that happy inspiration, Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back.

While generosity may be the antidote for the dizzying effects of wealth, your appetite for more may function as an antidote against God-honoring generosity. Your appetite for more stuff, status, and security has the potential to quash your efforts to be generous. And that's a problem.

Envy never comes to the ball dressed as envy; it comes dressed as high moral standards or distaste for materialism.

There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think wehave a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.

The covetous person is full of fear; and he or she who lives in fear will ever be a slave.

We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything

It is among the less privileged groups relatively new to leisure and consumption that the zest for possessions retains something of its pristine energy.

The material world will always attract a lot of women. A lot of people would be down for that, whatever the cost.

Thou shalt not covet means that it is sinful even to contemplate the seizure of another man's goods - which is something which Socialists, whether Christian or otherwise, have never managed to explain away.

The more you wish to be, the wiser you are; while the wish to have is apt to be foolish in proportion to its largeness.

Focus Not on Having Less or Having More, But on Wanting What You Have.

The enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.

I'm gonna be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender. Where the ads take aim and lay their claim to the heart and the soul of the spender. And believe in whatever may lie in those things that money can buy, though true love could have been a contender.

Under present conditions, people are preoccupied with consumer goods not because they are brainwashed but because buying is the one pleasurable activity not only permitted but actively encouraged by our rulers. The pleasure of eating an ice cream cone may be minor compared to the pleasure of meaningful, autonomous work, but the former is easily available and the latter is not. A poor family would undoubtedly rather have a decent apartment than a new TV, but since they are unlikely to get the apartment, what is to be gained by not getting the TV?

Men are tied up to their families and possessions more helplessly than in a prison. There is an occasion for the prisoner to be released, but householders entertain no desire to be relieved from the ties of family. When a man's passion is aroused nothing prevents him from ruining himself. Even into the jaws of a tiger will he jump. Those who are thus drowned in the filth of passion are called the ignorant. Those who are able to overcome it are saintly Arhats.

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

The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!

Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety.