#possession

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. ↗

— Pliny the Elder

#had #object #possession #pursuit #retains

Above all, it seems to me wrongheaded and dangerous to invoke historical assumptions about environmental practices of native peoples in order to justify treating them fairly. ... By invoking this assumption [i.e., that they were/are better environmental stewards than other peoples or parts of contemporary society] to justify fair treatment of native peoples, we imply that it would be OK to mistreat them if that assumption could be refuted. In fact, the case against mistreating them isn't based on any historical assumption about their environmental practices: it's based on a moral principle, namely, that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate or exterminate another people. ↗

— Jared Diamond

#dispossession #environment #equality #extermination #morality

The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day. ↗

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

#dependence-on-god #faith #insurance #material-goods #possessions

There can never be any real freedom on earth as long as people try to exert ownership over the natural resources of the world. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#ownership #possession #freedom

Love is about giving freedom and power, not about gaining control or possession. ↗

— Jeffrey Fry

#freedom #love #possession #power #freedom

I have every luxury imaginable, I own acres of land, and have enough money to buy the moon were it for sale. Though people think I have everything, it sometimes feels like my possessions own me; towering over me and reducing me into a small bundle of insignificance. ↗

— J. Matthew Nespoli

#depression #money #possessions #wealth #imagination

It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#possession #marriage

When I hear that "Possession is the grave of love," I remember that a religion may begin with the resurrection. ↗

— F.H. Bradley

#marriage #monogamy #possession #religion #resurrection

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 feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#materialism #possessions #property #values #men

The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows. ↗

— Gaston Bachelard

#belong #body #does #inn #morning