#possessions

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

— Bertrand Russell

#else #freely #living #more #more than anything

Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives. ↗

— Friedrich Schiller

#dust #fame #great #into #life

When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions. ↗

— Morrie Schwartz

#fences #how #individualize #look #our

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

— Alda Merini

#heaven #materialism #paradise #possessions #afterlife

Look, half the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were either in debt or bankrupt. The remaining half, most of them lost all their possessions. The only reason Monticello didn't get burned to the ground was that the British patrol missed the road. ↗

— Eric Massa

#british #burned #debt #declaration #either

Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose? ↗

— John Wesley

#christianity #clothing #compassion #evangelism #faithfulness

Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life. ↗

— Piero Gheddo

#attention #christianity #compassion #empathy #giving

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

Giving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most of our possessions. But for all of us it should mean dedicating everything we retain to further the kingdom. (For true disciples, however, it cannot mean hoarding or using kingdom assets self-indulgently.) ↗

— Randy Alcorn

#discipleship #giving #grip #hoarding #kingdom

We are told that we cannot lose external goods because we never really had them. The beauty of fields or gems is a real good, but it is theirs, not ours. ↗

— C. S. Lewis

#beauty