Once employed, the employed’s friends are reduced to creatures that he only sees when he has a new problem, or, something new to show off.

Societies need self sacrificing ignorant crowd;Religions need fearful followers;Systems need obedient slaves;Corporate world needs compulsive consumers,andI NEED THE COURAGE TO RISE ABOVE THESE FOUR PARASITES.

Our culture has bred consumers and addicts. We eat too much, buy too much, and want too much. We set ourselves on the fruitless mission of filling the gaping hole within us with material things....

We’re a society of brats, fighting over the same toys. That, for me, is the closest we come to be inherently evil as a people. It leads to selfishness, inflexibility, and impatience — among so...

Naturally there was the notion of private property as a pragmatic concept, for individuals or groups have a proclivity to tend to their own possessions with greater care and reverence than they would to common...

[When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996:]If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion, why do you not believe in materialistic science, which has an unparalleled record of...

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let...

It had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and excellent waiting at table. In warming himself...

Needs multiply as they are met. Woe to the man who would live a disentangled life. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!

I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth “home.” Before you know...

To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.

Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.

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.

Science and religion both make claims about the fundamental workings of the universe. Although these claims are not a priori incompatible (we could imagine being brought to religious belief through scientific investigation), I will argue...

Let temporal things be in the use, eternal things in the desire.

Shopkeepers —the great landed and commercial interests—regularly sat and slept, and where the two publicans occupied pews, but seldom made even the pretence of worshipping.

Melancholy in a capitalist, like the appearance of a comet, presages some misfortune to the world.

I’d much rather buy an experience than something I can possess in the material world

Fidelity surveyed a group with at least $1 million investment assets excluding real estate and retirement. 42% of them did not FEEL wealthy.

It is easier for one to take risks and to chase his dreams with a mindset that he has nothing to lose. In this lies the immense passion, the great advantage of avoiding a materialistic,...

The one who lives solely with the many, solely with the best, lives only as briefly as that which he owns, passes his tests. The one living by his actions, and by his deeds, will...

humanity” a small price for the power they now wielded; power that would sustain them far beyond the lives of mere humans and perhaps, in time, even grant them immortality.

The real problems of our planet are not economic or technical, they are philosophical. The philosophy of unbridled materialism is being challenged by events.

The problem, however, is that I have yet to meet anyone, materialist or otherwise, who was able to dispense with value judgements. On the contrary, the literature of materialism is peculiarly marked by its wholesale...

….I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own...

If every lover was treated like they matter — everyday; valentine’s day wouldn’t be so ‘special.

…to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.

Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they...

On Christ’s attitude toward His disciples: “If I gave away My big all to get to you, can you give away your little all to follow Me?

I don’t like Paradise,As they probably don’t have obsessions there.

How pointless life could be, what a foolish business of inventing things to love, just so you could dread losing them.

Freeways flickering; cell phones chiming a tuneWe’re riding to Utopia; road map says we’ll be arriving soonCaptains of the old order clinging to the reinsAssuring us these aches inside are only growing painsBut it’s a...

I know perfectly well that it is impossible, according to arithmetic and scholarly books, to live in a far valley off a handful of ewes and two low yield cows. But we live, I say....

In a hyper materialist environment where everything is reduced to mere economic considerations, what we deem to be important is often trivial, a temporary fix for deeper and more profound yearnings.This has given rise to...

Being king is about having all the material things you want, and having nobody you trust enough to share them with.

We have too quickly bought into the lie that we’ll be happier with more—and as a result, too often miss the joy that comes from owning less.

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

Man would rather be loved for what he has, than be hated for what he lacks.

from The AuctionI left my home with unencumbered willAnd all the rubbish of confusion sold.

If there is a void in your life then you will never fill it with cash!

Hold material goods and wealth on a flat palm and not in a clenched fist.

I believe that secularism is not the enemy of spirituality. Our spirits are in fact secular and free. But the enemy of your spirit is materialism which produces legalism. People scramble for the “perfect law”...

The males (of the Hutchinson family that included both religious dissenter Anne and immensely wealthy and politically connected Thomas) were merchants who sought salvation through commerce.

In poor Rosamond’s mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in.

There is absolutely a big difference between getting a date and getting a husband. Being overly materialistic can get a lady some dates, but an impeccable character will surely get her a husband of a...

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.

Whoever prefers the material comforts of life over intellectual wealth is like the owner of a palace who moves into the servants’ quarters and leaves the sumptuous rooms empty.

I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to...

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

Environmentalists and secular humanists insist that humans will destroy the planet. Corporate capitalists and many religious fundamentalists have no regard for wildlife and nature. Ultimately, this dualistic battle is based on false premises. In fact,...