Quotes on Material Things

When you are completely free from boundaries, you don't have to have a huge number of material things. You already own something far more precious. You own yourself.

There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.

PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.

Spiritual power is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest force in the development of men. Ye. we have been merely playing with it and never have really studied it as we have the physical forces. Some day people will learn that material things do not bring happiness, and are of little use in making people creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of spiritual forces which have hardly been scratched.

Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love - the money, the car, the house, the prestige - we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're nothing. ("A Return to Love")

The greatest victory in life is to rise above the material things that we once valued most

The best things in life aren't things.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them.

If money and material things become the center of our lives, they seize us and make us slaves.

Scott-there's nothing in the world I want but you-and your precious love. All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live in a sordid, colorless existence-because you'd soon love less-and less-and I'd do anything-anything-to keep your heart for my own-I don't want to live-I want to love first and live incidentally.

To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.

Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it’s about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding.

I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance, says Jesus. This is where true wealth is found, not in material things!

You may have occasion to possess or use material things, but the secret of life lies in never missing them.

The time will come when mankind will begin to get away from the consciousness of needing so many material things. More security and peace will be found in the simple life.

Let us encourage the generosity which is typical of the young and help them to work actively in building a better world. Youth do not solely need material things. Above all, they need to have those non-material values which are the spiritual heart of a people ... spirituality, generosity, solidarity, perseverance, fraternity, and joy.

To measure success with material things is failure!

Seeking happiness in material things is a sure way of being unhappy.

I have noticed that the Universe loves gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more goodies you get. When I say 'goodies', I don't mean only material things. I mean all the people, places and experiences that make life so wonderfully worth living.