Best 566 quotes in «materialism quotes» category

When a man's bank balance becomes too small, his woman flees. For a man to do the same, his woman's body — or vagina — has to do the opposite.

When a man's girlfriend's parents ask him what it is that he does for a living: they’re not really concerned about him; they’re concerned about their daughter’s tummy.

When everything gets too much, give some away

When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain 'gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ... So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes.

When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Petain, Montagu Norman, Pavelitch, William Randolph Hearst, Streicher, Buchman, Ezra Pound, Juan March, Cocteau, Thyssen, Father Coughlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Arnold Lunn, Antonescu, Spengler, Beverley Nichols, Lady Houston, and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. Ditto, though it contains a partial truth, with all the talk about the worthlessness of social reconstruction not accompanied by a ‘change of heart’. The pious ones, from the Pope to the yogis of California, are great on the’ change of heart’, much more reassuring from their point of view than a change in the economic system.

When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. {Letter to John Adams, from Monticello, 15 August 1820}

When people are treated like a product, they become obsessed with materialism.

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

When speculators have once entered Wall Street, they never leave it except in a pine box or a rosewood case, according to circumstances.

When the marketplace became crowded with scores of similar products that mostly did what they were supposed to do, companies focused less on selling that product, and more on selling you a relationship with the product, and a means of announcing your own identity.

When the world shifts its focus on heart over mind, we will finally experience a beautiful global village for our children.

When we see a good-looking woman with a not-so-good-looking man, we assume that the man must have a good bank balance. When we see a good-looking man with a not-so-good-looking woman, we assume that she must be good in bed.

While we were waiting for the shower, our nakedness was brought home to us: we really had nothing now except our bare bodies—even minus hair; all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence

When your underwear costs more than your child's education then you are in serious trouble" RjS

Whether it’s the growth of the economy, audience shares, publications – slowly but surely, quality is being replaced by quantity. ... And driving it all is a force sometimes called “liberalism,” an ideology that has been all but hollowed out. ... Freedom may be our highest ideal, but ours has become an empty freedom. Our fear of moralizing in any form has made morality a taboo in the public debate. The public arena should be “neutral,” after all – yet never before has it been so paternalistic. On every street corner we’re baited to booze, binge, borrow, buy, toil, stress, and swindle. Whatever we may tell ourselves about freedom of speech, our values are suspiciously close to those touted by precisely the companies that can pay for prime-time advertising.

While many of us admire nice things, materialism and suffering may share a connection. When we place a great deal of our happiness in material things, we run the great risk of losing our happiness when our material things become lost, old, or damaged. Toys break. Cars get dents. Clothes get ripped. Jewels get lost or stolen. Riches come and go. If we collect moments rather than things, these are ours to keep. If we redefine wealth by the amount of love and kindness we afford ourselves to give to others, we can transform our lives.

Why does a steward steal? He steals because he's not sure he'll always remain with his master and wants to make his future secure.

Whoever that came up with the idea of people having to have 'a dream' sure knew how to keep these creatures called human beings preoccupied.

Why are we so desperate to escape the material world? Is it really so bleak? Or could it be, rather, that we have made it bleak: obscured its vibrant mystery with our ideological blinders, severed its infinite connectedness with our categories, suppressed its spontaneous order with our pavement, reduced its infinite variety with our commodities, shattered its eternity with our time-keeping, and denied its abundance with our money system?

Why doesn't the pope convert to Calvinism? Why doesn't the Dalai Lama, convert to Christianity, why doesn't Billy Graham convert to Islam, Why doesn't the Ayatollahs convert to Buddhism, Why isn't Buddhism swept away? Religious leaders know that all religions are equal; they know that no one of them has the monopoly to the knowledge of God. They know that each religion is trying to find the hidden God and that no one religion can claim to have found him beyond doubt. That's why they remain where they are and respect each other.

Yes, I'm a materialist. I'm willing to be shown wrong, but that has not happened — yet. And I admit that the reason I'm unable to accept the claims of psychic, occult, and/or supernatural wonders is because I'm locked into a world-view that demands evidence rather than blind faith, a view that insists upon the replication of all experiments — particularly those that appear to show violations of a rational world — and a view which requires open examination of the methods used to carry out those experiments.

Without death there would be no life, just like lions need to kill in order to live

Worth is not something you can buy for $39.99, nor something you can lose with 10 extra pounds. Self-judging people make good consumers. Start a revolution. Love yourself.

Your materialism will make you suffer terribly not only at the end but also on the way.

You are too timid for me. You care too much about what other people think. But you know what? Because you are so desperate to win the approval of others, you'll never get rid of their criticisms, no matter how hard you try. You say you want to travel the path, but you don't want to sacrifice anything to that end. Money, fame, power, lavishness, or carnal pleasure - whatever it is that one holds most dear in life, one should dispose of that first.

You can’t really, truly love a thing. Love is only possible between beings or groups of beings. Love of a thing doesn’t work because it can’t love back.

You drive in a Maybach past a homeless person and you ask, 'Who's more free?' You could be trapped to your possessions.

You know a man is interesting when you forget to notice how expensive — or cheap — his clothes are.

You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write. It's a vicious cycle.

You may possibly become rich by just caring about yourself and what you want to gain from your profession and your life but you cannot possibly enrich the lives of everyone you meet that way.

Your life is not meant to be used in exchange for mundane things like houses and cars but to purchase greatness.

Your shyness alone will bring you more emotional and material losses than all of your other negative attributes.

All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point; it's a rather vapid form of religion.

A cold atheistical materialism is the tendency of the so-called material philosophy of the present day.

you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to say a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes.

America has abandoned the strong woman of spirituality and is shacking up with the harlot of materialism.

Dualism makes the problem insoluble; materialism denies the existence of any phenomenon to study, and hence of any problem.

Americans consume three quarters of the world's anti-depressants because materialism will never bring happiness.

An intriguing paradox of the 1990s is that it isn't called a decade of greed.

Anything you lose automatically doubles in value.

Chârvâkas, a very ancient sect in India, were rank materialists.

Contrary to what they tell you... You are not a limited material being.

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

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

Individually, people are finding that a simpler lifestyle provides greater satisfaction than relentless pursuit of materialism.

It seems to me that philosophers should be more relaxed about whether or not some form of materialism is true.

It really is a very radical call ... to reject materialism as our central value and to think about the sanctity of life and what that really means if we take it seriously.

Look, Salvador Dali did not paint because he needed the money. No conversation about materialism and music makes sense. You make music and that's that, it doesn't matter why.

Let there be as little materialism as possible, with the maximum of spirituality.

Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered by materialism.