Quotes About Possessions

Material possessions, in themselves, are good. We would not survive for long without money, clothing and shelter. We must eat in order to stay alive. Yet if we are greedy, if we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, then we make our possessions into a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.

No matter how many possessions we acquire, they will not provide us with any lasting happiness and freedom. On the contrary, it is often our pursuit of material possessions that causes our problems. If we want ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering, we must engage in the supreme practices of training the mind. There is no other way.

Sometimes our thoughts and feelings are our most prized possessions... and then there are times to let go of your possessions and wander.

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised at how much pleasure you get in material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God.

Identification with the body, with the mind, with our possessions, with our families, with our friends - any kind of identification takes you outwards. All your possessions will be outwards: your wife, your husband, your children, your body - your body is outside you; your mind - your mind is outside you. The only thing that is not outside you is the witnessing. Just the watchfulness - that is your buddha. Identification means losing witnessing, falling into the trap of attachment. That is our misery, that is our slavery.

To leave a place, you'd best leave everything behind; all your possessions, including memory. Traveling's not as easy as it's made out to be.

Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.

A clean and sensitive conscience, a steady and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as large, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.

Our possessions can be deadly. They can be subtly deadly.

You can live in the world and have friends, family and possessions. But don't take them all too seriously. Death removes everything. Feel death is every moment, as life is every moment.

In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.

The thing about new things is you feel new when you buy them, you feel as though you are somebody different because you own something different. We are our possessions, you know. There are people who get addicted to buying new stuff. Things. Piles and piles of things. But the new things become old things so quickly. We need new things to replace the old things.

Exorcists always need to distinguish demonic possessions from mental or psychiatric disorders, and they use three symptoms to identify people as possessed. First, those people have the ability to see hidden sacred objects, which they always want removed. Second, they have an extraordinary physical strength. And third, they show an aversion to the sacred

Property-owners are the most energetic flag-waggers and patriots in every country, but only so long as they enjoy their possessions: to safeguard those they desert God, King and Country in a twinkling.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Together as a nation, we have the obligation to put sunshine into the hearts of our little ones. They are our precious possessions. They deserve what happiness life can offer.

Possessions only provide temporary happiness.

Neither can men, by the same principles, be considered as lands, goods, or houses, among possessions. It is necessary that all property should be inferiour to its possessor. But how does the slave differ from his master, but by chance?

Without possessions, success, fame; who are you?

Every form of strength is also a form of weakness,” he once wrote. “Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them. I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.

Having enough money has to go hand in hand with living in a way that you're not being a slave to your possessions.

O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions Time!

The mother is the most precious possessions of the nation, so precious that society advances its highest well-being when it protects the functions of the mother.

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.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

But, historians, and even common sense, may inform us, that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem, they are really, at bottom, impracticable; and were they not so, would be extremely pernicious to human society. Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality. Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence; and instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.

Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions. Radio makes surprise impossible.

Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

None of those material possessions do anything to make your life any better.... I know a lot of people who have a lot of everything, and they're absolutely the most miserable people in the world. So it won't do anything for you unless you're a happy person and can have peace with yourself.

Contentment is one of the most distinguishing traits of the godly person, because a godly person has his heart focused on God rather than on possessions or position or power.

Some parents place undue priority on temporal and material possessions. Some are far less diligent in their efforts to immerse their children in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember that having religious observance in the home is as important as providing food, clothing and shelter.

It is a curious fact that personal possessions take on fictitious values and exceptional charms when the owner, no matter how generous, is faced with giving them away or even selling them (which usually amounts to the same thing).

A nation's poets are its true owners; and by the stroke of the pen they convey the title-deeds of its real possessions to strangers and aliens.

O, that we who declare war against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding onto money! May we look upon our estates, our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these, our possessions.

[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things—property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobile are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know—that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

The happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages-such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life!

Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.

He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over hopes and possessions lying far beyond his gravestone, viewing his life, even here, as a period but closed with a comma. He who sees his heir in another man's child sees the full stop at the end of the sentence.

The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to.

Don’t accumulate possessions; accumulate experiences!

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

Travel compels you to discover your spiritual side by elimination: Without all the rituals, routines and possessions that give your life meaning at home, you're forced to look for meaning within yourself Indeed, if travel is a process that helps you 'find yourself', it's because it leaves you with nothing to hide behind - it yanks you out from the realm of rehearsed responses and dull comforts, and forces you into the present. Here, in the fleeting moment, you are left to improvise, to come to terms with your raw, true self.

Mary adored Jesus as the Bridegroom of souls. Union is the final purpose of love. Jesus by the gift of His substance in the Eucharist unites Himself with our souls as with His dear spouses. As a Bridegroom, He gives them all His possessions, His name, His heart, His whole Self, but on the condition that the soul reciprocates. The soul, His spouse, shall live for Him only

Humility, in its turn, can be achieved only through faith, fear of God, gentleness and the shedding of all possessions.

Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power.

Love is manifested not only through the distribution of one's possessions, but even moreso through the spreading of the word of God and helpful deeds.

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.