Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected.... Hoarding is idolatry. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Earthly riches are like the reed. Its roots are sunk in the swamp, and its exterior is fair to behold; but inside it is hollow. If a man leans on such a reed, it will snap off and pierce his soul. — Anthony of Padua
Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. — Peace Pilgrim
Man's pursuit of physical desires and earthly possessions is an indication of his lack of conviction that the purpose of his existence is the attainment of spirituality. — Abraham J. Twerski
What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever. — Henry Van Dyke
If you are attached to the things of this earth, you should give alms sufficient to enable you to punish your avarice by depriving yourself of all that is not absolutely necessary for life. — John Vianney
It is easier to renounce worldly possessions than it is to renounce the love of them — Walter Hilton
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. — Bertrand Russell
Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations. — Rabindranath Tagore
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. — Peace Pilgrim
Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day. — Ramakrishna
The troubles of this world pass, and what we have left is what we have made of our souls. — Shoghi Effendi
Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. — Oscar Wilde
It is ignorance or at least lack of consideration of heavenly things that make the temporal things of this world, whether good or evil, greater than they really are. — Tom Patton
Worldly Possessions Quotes
The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart. — J. G. Holland
You've seen the world, and all you've seen is nothing; and everything, as well, that you have said and heard is nothing. You've sprinted everywhere between here and the horizon; it is nothing. And all the possessions you've treasured up at home are nothing. — Omar Khayyam
The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of falling altogether. After all there has to be some belief in magic- however small- for any world to survive. — Terry Brooks
Never let the thing you want make you forget the things you have.
The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization. — Alexander Graham Bell
Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in the world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise. — Christopher Columbus
A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language. — Frantz Fanon
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.
What an illusion Mahamaya has conjured up! Here is this infinite world, and what one claims as his possession will be left behind at death. Still men cannot understand this simple truth. — Sarada Devi
Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country. It has no energy crisis, possessing a potential that will last as long as the country. Its power is equal to that of any country in the world. — Richard Eberhart
Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. — Colin Powell
No one who possesses snow would find any hardship in exchanging it for jewels and pearls. This world is like snow exposed to sun, which continues to melt until it disappears altogether, while the next life is like a precious stone that never passes away. — Al-Ghazali
Material Possessions Quotes
I am no longer cursed by poverty because I took possession of my own mind, and that mind has yielded me every material thing I want, and much more than I need. But this power of mind is a universal one, available to the humblest person as it is to the greatest. — Andrew Carnegie
At the end of the day, that's really what it boils down to. The rest of it is just stuff. — Jared Kushner
You could call me on the phone and say, 'Someone blew up your entire house, Mike.' If it's not a person involved, I would sort of blink, whatever. That's all replaceable, right? — Michael Saylor
Be still, and the earth will speak to you.
Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own earth — Frank Lloyd Wright
As you get older, you just realize that there’s no happiness in material possessions. — Naval Ravikant
I was one of those people who put too much emphasis on work and career and material possessions, and it took its toll on all my relationships, on my physical health, my emotional and mental health. — Tony Shalhoub
Better a drop of wisdom than an ocean of gold — Greek Proverbs
As in Machiavelli, the bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being; but the possession of land in nondependent tenure is now the material basis for bearing of arms. — J. G. A. Pocock
Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake. — E. M. Forster
Earthly Things Quotes
We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things. That is what we are put on the earth for. — Dolores Huerta
Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness. — Lao Tzu
Our bones, flesh and blood are made up of the metals, liquids and minerals of the earth and everything on this planet is made up of the same things. As humans we have being, so everything on the earth does too in our culture, because we are made of the same thing. — John Trudell
If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. — Chief Seattle
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. — Walt Whitman
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself. — Josh Billings
Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing. — John of the Cross
The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. — Chief Seattle
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that. — Chief Joseph
We don't have a right to ask whether we're going to succeed or not. The only question we have a right to ask is what's the right thing to do? What does this earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it? — Wendell Berry
Valuable Possessions Quotes
There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend. — Socrates
The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace. — Carlos Santana
True generosity is an offering; given freely and out of pure love. No strings attached. No expectations. Time and love are the most valuable possession you can share. — Suze Orman
The gift which I am sending you is called a dog, and is in fact the most precious and valuable possession of mankind — Theodorus Gaza
I understand that a man can have everything having nothing and nothing having everything. — Mihai Eminescu
A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented. — Benjamin Disraeli
A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession. — Hippocrates
Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable - their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves. — Michelle Obama
When you deal with a man, deal with his most valuable possession, his life. There's play and there's the deep flow. I like to take things to the deep flow of play, because everything is a game, serious and nonserious at the same time. So play life like it's a game. — Huey Newton
I sold my most valuable possession, but I knew that because I worked at Hewlett Packard, I could buy the next model calculator the very next month for a lower price than I sold the older one for! — Steve Wozniak
Precious Possessions Quotes
Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all - liberty! — James Monroe
You are bigger than everything you own. You are more precious than everything you possess. You are more important than everything that has come into your life. — Mahatria Ra
Of all possessions a friend is the most precious. — Herodotus
Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance. — Hendrik Willem Van Loon
Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving. — W. Clement Stone
FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions. — Ambrose Bierce
Thirsting desires and longings possessed my soul after perfect holiness. God was so precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments appeared vile. I had no more value for the favor of men than for pebbles. — David Brainerd
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession. — Mark Twain
Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you have working there, and what they carry around in their heads, and their ability to work together. — Robert Reich
My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! — Thomas Jefferson
Materialistic Things Quotes
Females in our generation morals are just out the window. Materialistic things aren't life. I'd rather walk in the rain with a man who treats me like a queen than to ride in a Benz with a man who treats me like crap. — Jhene Aiko
Naturally I never had the intention to offend or alienate Slavs. ... What makes me different from the 'nazis' are basically three things; unlike them I am not socialistic (not even on a national level), I am not materialistic and I believe in (the ancient Scandinavian!) democracy. — Varg Vikernes
There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything - millions of dollars, mansions, cars, nice clothes, beautiful women, and every other materialistic thing you can imagine. Now I struggle for peace. — Richard Pryor
Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth. — Harold Urey
We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted. — Mitch Albom
The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
I think I'm actually quite a materialistic person, I value what it takes to make a car or build a nice house. Money does change things, but how it changes people depends on how they react to it. — Roland Gift
As long as our consciousness is materialistic, there is no room for joy. However on the spiritual platform three things automatically happen: eternity, knowledge and bliss. — Bhakti Charu Swami
In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved. — John of the Cross
All one can really leave one's children is what's inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away. — Wernher Von Braun
Architecture is the triumph of human imagination over materials, methods, and men, to put man into possession of his own Earth. It is at least the geometric pattern of things, of life, of the human and social world. It is at best that magic framework of reality that we sometimes touch upon when we use the word order. — Frank Lloyd Wright
To all earth's creatures God has given the broad earth, the springs, the rivers and the forests, giving the air to the birds, and the waters to those who live in water, giving abundantly to all the basic needs of life, not as a private possession, not restricted by law, not divided by boundaries, but as common to all, amply and in rich measure. — Gregory of Nazianzus
Ye cannot serve God and mammon. — Matthew McConaughey
Nobody can fight properly and boldly for the faith if he clings to a fear of being stripped of earthly possessions. — Peter Damian
The earth in its rapid motion round the sun possesses a degree of living force so vast that, if turned into the equivalent of heat, its temperature would be rendered at least one thousand times greater than that of red-hot iron, and the globe on which we tread would in all probability be rendered equal in brightness to the sun itself. — James Prescott Joule
If dead things love, if earth and water distinguish friends from enemies, I should like to possess their love. I should like the green earth not to feel my step as a heavy burden. I should like her to forgive that she for my sake is wounded by plough and harrow, and willingly to open for my dead body. — Selma Lagerlöf
And when statesmen or others worry him [the scientist] too much, then he should leave with his possessions. With a firm and steadfast mind one should hold under all conditions, that everywhere the earth is below and the sky above and to the energetic man, every region is his fatherland. — Tycho Brahe
Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The world has been created for everyone's use, but you few rich are trying to keep it up for yourselves. For not merely the possession of the earth, but the very sky, the air, and the sea are claimed for the use of the rich few... The earth belongs to all, not just to the rich. — Ambrose
Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. — David O. Mckay
A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him. — Czeslaw Milosz
Each of us will eventually give away all our earthly possessions. How we choose to do so, however, is a reflection of our commitment to the kingdom of God. — Charles Stanley
Our Lord did not want to remain on earth only through His grace, His truth or His words; He remains in person. We possess the same Lord Jesus Christ Who lived in Judea, although under a different form of life. He has put on a sacramental garment, but He does not cease being Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Mary. — Peter Julian Eymard
Avoid duplicity, that is, do not let your heart be divided between attachment to God and attachment to earthly things, 'You cannot serve God and mammon' (Mt. 6:24); cling to God alone, put your trust in Him alone; for the Devil, by inciting us to duplicity, seeks himself to gain possession of our heart, which is single and indivisible. — John of Kronstadt
Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men. — Thomas Jefferson
Earthly possessions are not what you came here to gather.
Do not worry about your earthly possessions. Place your attention on your heavenly goal - the evolution of your soul - and you will find peace even while on earth. — Neale Donald Walsch
If yon wish to be like the gods on earth, to be free in the realms of the dead, pluck not the fruit from the garden! In appearance it may glisten to the eye; but the perishable pleasure of possession quickly avenges the curse of curiosity. — Friedrich Schiller
Know yourself. Feel yourself. Love yourself. Respect yourself. Take good care of yourself. You are your most precious possession on Earth. — Robert Muller
In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing. — Apollonius of Tyana
All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course-- consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty occupies a foot of land that was not stolen. — Mark Twain
It is the bourgeoisie which has turned religion into an opium of the people by preaching a God, lord of the heavens only, while taking possession of the earth for itself. — Frei Betto
I see upon their noble brows the seal of the Lord, for they were born kings of the earth far more truly than those who possess it only from having bought it. — George Sand
Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth breather there is. — Garrison Keillor
A great deal of struggle and sorrow in the world comes from misguided feelings of pride of ownership and possessiveness, versus the humble spirit of stewardship as common temporary inheritors of the great resources of earth. — Bryant H. McGill
The moon... is a mass, akin to the mass of the earth, attracts the waters by a magnetic force, not because they are liquid, but because they possess earthy substance, and so share in the movements of a heavy body. — Johannes Kepler
Over the whole earth- this infinitely small globe that possesses all we know of sunshine and bird song- an unfamiliar blight is creeping: man- man, who has become at last a planetary disease and who would, if his technology yet permitted, pass this infection to another star. — Loren Eiseley
I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ. — Michelangelo
A highly learned man has two sources of happiness: either he abandons all earthly interests, or else he possesses much which could be abandoned. — Akkineni Nagarjuna
That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth.
[Fr., Ce chien est a moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est la ma place au soleil. Voila le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre.] — Blaise Pascal
I should have wished to possess the intellectual equilibrium that characterizes you and permits you to achieve without fail the desired end... Chance has not favoured me with an equal self-assurance, it is the only regret I have about things of this earth. — Paul Cezanne
Nature has poured forth all things for the common use of all men. And God has ordained that all things should be produced that there might be food in common for all, and that the earth should be in the common possession of all. Nature created common rights, but usurpation has transformed them into private rights. — Ambrose
The mineral kingdom consists of the fossil substances found in the earth. These are either entirely destitute of organic structure, or, having once possessed it, possess it no longer: such are the petrefactions. — Torbern Bergman
The land, the earth God gave to man for his home ... should never be the possession of any man, corporation, (or) society ... any more than the air or water. — Abraham Lincoln
I've always been attracted to women who are assertive and have confidence - qualities older women possess. They've been on the Earth a little longer. They're more seasoned. They don't play games. They know what they want, and they're not afraid to tell you. — Sayings
The few men who possess the wealth of the material things of the earth at the present time are not truly happy. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford
In the Twentieth Century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live. He will possess something higher than all these-a great country, the whole earth, and a great hope, the whole heaven. — Victor Hugo
The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. — Mother Teresa
The genocidal culture's image of woman as object and victim is paralleled by contemporary representations that continually show the Earth as a toy, machine, or violated object, as well as by the religious and scientific ideology that legitimates the possession, contamination, and destruction of Mother Earth. — Jane Caputi
The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze. — Mark Twain
In Conclusion
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