#materialism

That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts… ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#cyberpunk #materialism #meaning #plastic-surgery #reality

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#anxiety #desire #happiness #materialism #possessions

And what, O Queen, are those things that are dear to a man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is not resting-place among them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number. ↗

— H. Rider Haggard

#endeavors #greed #humanity #ladder #learning

Enttäuschung und Frustration werden [...] alle erleben, die sich wie im Märchen danach sehnen, Glück in einem Schlaraffenland zu finden ... Nur, dass unser Schlaraffenland nicht ein großer Berg von süßem Brei ist ... wir haben andere Fantasien und Bilder von Fülle und Erfülltheit in einem imaginären Schlaraffenland, das nur eben unglücklicherweise niemals dort ist, wo wir tatsächlich leben. Vielmehr leben wir mit der Hoffnung auf ein Glück, das uns das Schicksal irgenwann einmal gewähren müsse. [...] So können wir das Schlaraffenland je nach unserer eigenen Fasson ausgestalten - und wir tun es. Privat und auch gesellschaftlich. Doch sobald wir anfangen, uns mit diesem Glücksmodell anzufreunden, und gespannt darauf warten, wie im Lotto das große Los zu ziehen, werden wir auf einem Weg sein, wo das Glück ganz bestimmt nicht zu uns findet! Wir bleiben hungrig und ungesättigt. Denn geheimnisvollerweise ist das Glück dort, wo wir Bezogenheit leben - selbst in dem unspektatulärsten Tun des Alltags. ↗

— Joachim Gauck

#conduct-of-life #desires #greed #happiness #laziness

When people are treated like a product, they become obsessed with materialism. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#materialism #obssession #life

There is no ownership. There is only stewardship. ↗

— LeeAnn Taylor

#belonging #earth #humanity #life #man

What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#environment #environmental-protection #materialism #possessions #environment

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 it, I am calling luxeries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set. ↗

— John Piper

#fitting-in #materialism #mind-set #missions #money

The problems afflicting a nation are always in equal measure spiritual crises. ↗

— Ron Suskind

#idolatry #materialism #education

The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment. ↗

— Confucius

#consumerism #greed #materialism #profit #greed