Best 566 quotes in «materialism quotes» category

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.

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

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

Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.

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

Meditation means to be free from all phenomena and calmness means to be internally unperturbed. There will be calmness when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.

Naturalism and materialism mean essentially the same thing.

No social system will bring us happiness, health and prosperity unless it is inspired by something greater than materialism.

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.

Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.

Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.

Our chief comforts often produce our greatest anxieties, and the increase in our possessions is but an inlet to new disquietudes.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession.

Purposeless activity may be a phase of death.

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism.

Solipsism may be logically consistent with present Quantum Mechanics, Monism in the sense of Materialism is not.

...though one can be callous in Ireland one cannot be wholly opaque or material. An unearthly disturbance works in the spirit; reason can never reconcile one to life; nothing allays the wants one cannot explain.

The American dream was not, at least at the beginning, a rags-to-riches type of narrow materialism.

The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist.

The sense that materialism has gotten out of hand is magnified by the pressures facing middle-class American families.

Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation. It is possible though very unlikely that our whole world is controlled by elves. But supernatural explanations like these are simply never needed; we manage to understand the natural world just fine using reason and materialism.

The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism

We are all born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.

We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.

You have to decide to servant the gods of materialism all around us or the true and the living God.

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about? Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.

A broke man’s lover doesn’t feel ‘loved’ on her Birthday, Christmas, and, on Valentine’s Day.

A civilized woman's demands: A man who will (1) make her come … sometimes; but (2) pay the bills … at all times.

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life.

A church service starts and ends with a prayer. A magazine starts and ends with an advert.

Acolo unde predomină materialismul raţionalist statele se transformă mai puţin în nişte închisori, cât în nişte ospicii.

Adams was in a hurry and ordered his horse drawn carriage to wait for him in front of his house. The horses were spooked before he got in the carriage, and the carriage was destroyed in an accident. Pondering what could have happened to him , Adams retreated to Psalm 20's injunctions against trusting in chariots and horses.

A daily portion is all that a man really wants. We do not need tomorrow's supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in the month of June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive we shall never know want.

A live well-lived is not judged on a post-mortem stocktake of material acquisitions. It is based on the number and depth of the laugh lines on the face of the person lying in repose in their coffin.

Adversity hath slain her thousand, but prosperity her ten thousand.

A fast car can make women 'like' a man; and a man 'like' women … fast.

A free spirit is not bound by this, that, matter, materialism or opinion. They sing, dance and flow on the wind - for they are at one with it. They are nothing and everything - void and expanse. Even space and time does not confine or define them. For they are pure energy itself.

A life well-lived is not measured by material possessions or the size of the funeral turnout. The quantity and depth of laugh lines on the face of the person lying in repose in their coffin reveals a life's true worth.

All religions are man-made; God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.

All images and sensations, if idolatrously mistaken for Joy itself, soon honestly confessed themselves inadequate. All said, in a last resort, "It is not high. I am only a reminder. Look! Look! What do I remind you of?" CS Lewis

A lot of people with a lot of ill gotten wealth may think that they have high net worth, but will simply never be worthy of any trust or respect.

All the wealth in the world is nothing, pointless - of no true value - if you yourself feel worthless.

Already, in the last few decades, you have realized the utter futility of of encumbering yourselves with superfluous possessions that have no useful virtue, but which, for various sentimental reasons, you continue to hoard, thus lessening your life's efficiency by using for it time and attention that should have been applied to the practical work of life's accomplishments. (The Miracle of the Lily - 1928)

A man’s bank balance is the new penis size.

A man may follow vanity as truly in the counting-house as in the theatre. If he be spending his life in amassing wealth, he passes his days in a vain show.

A man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house.

A man who has caught a billion is not nearly as admirable as a boy (or even a man) who was caught by a million.

Ambition’ is ‘greed’ rebranded.