Quotessence
Home / Topics / Possessions Quotes

Possessions Quotes

Browse 97 quotes about Possessions.

Possessions Quotes

“Minimize your kids' playtime possessions and you may find that they become less selfish and less materialistic, cherish more and take better care of the toys they do have, and have more time for reading, writing, art, and imaginative play. They might spend more time with real live human beings. They might even go outdoors!”

“Wakati mwingine inaweza kuonekana kuwa kadiri unavyozidi kujitolea kwa ajili ya watu wengine ndivyo unavyozidi kuwa maskini, lakini hii si kweli. Huduma kwa ajili ya watu wengine huleta maana fulani na ukamilifu katika maisha yetu kwa namna ambayo utajiri, madaraka na mali haviwezi kushindana nao. Mungu hababaishwi na kiasi gani unatoa. Anababaishwa na imani uliyonayo wakati unatoa. Ukitoa kidogo inatosha. Ukitoa kingi inatosha pia.”

“Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, ‘Look at my beautiful home! Isn’t it fine?’ And not, ‘Look at the home so-and-so has built.’ Thus we shouldn’t cry, ‘Look what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!’ But rather, ‘Look at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?”

“Already, in the last few decades, you have realized the utter futility of of encumbering yourselves with superfluous possessions that have no useful virtue, but which, for various sentimental reasons, you continue to hoard, thus lessening your life's efficiency by using for it time and attention that should have been applied to the practical work of life's accomplishments. (The Miracle of the Lily - 1928)”

“Then there had been the slowdown; an accumulation, as in sluggish rivers. Things ended up in this house that hadn't been needed in their city life but that they couldn't simply throw out. Layers of sediment, over thirty years of it, had sifted in during springs and summers and falls and springs and summers, and now Nell must dig down through these layers, excavate them, as if the house has been buried under the ash from a volcanic eruption.”

“There were a few civilized details, like chairs that looked as though they had been purloined from more modern and elegant domiciles- a red velvet recliner, for instance, which would have been far more at home at Mr. Darling's club than in a cave. Wherever did that come from? Wendy wondered. But the rest of the furniture consisted primarily of things like barrels cut in half with moss for cushions, and the stumps of trees with hastily hammered-on backs. Enormous mushrooms made for tables. Some of the lanterns were fungus as well- softly glowing bluish-green "flowers" that spread in delicate clumps just below the ceiling. "John would just have a field day with those, I'm certain," Wendy said with a smile. One large barrel was placed under the end of a hollowed-out root to collect rainwater. There were shelves and nooks for the few possessions considered precious by the Lost Boys: piles of gold coins, interesting animal skeletons, shiny crystals, captivating burrs and seedpods. Also more strange detritus of the civilized world: a hinge, a pipe, a knob from a drawer, a spanner, and even a pocket watch.”

“Material possessions radiate a certain type of energy. They are not neutral. The more material possessions you have around you, the more distracting and draining those objects can become. If the outside world dominates your thoughts with responsibilities, worries, and conflicting energies of all sorts, then your mind and spirit will not have the space to allow the creative force to flow and flower.”

“If all you have is money, you are among the poorest people in the world.”

“I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.”

“You know, there’s no pleasure like the joy of being a sexual woman. You can take your careers, your money, your houses and possessions, and you go and throw them in a lake. Because life is really all about sex. That’s what I keep learning, again and again. It’s the most important thing, woven into the very centre of life. And I just know I was put on this earth to be a sexual woman, and to explore as much about sex as I can.”

“Maana halisi ya ukarimu si kutoa vitu au mali nyingi kwa watu wanaohitaji msaada, bali ni kutoa vitu au mali hizo bila kinyongo au unafiki wowote. Ukarimu unapaswa kutolewa kwa watu sahihi, wakati sahihi, kiasi sahihi na kwa moyo mmoja bila kinyongo chochote. Ukitoa kwa lengo la kupata faida, huo ni ubinafsi na unafiki mkubwa.”

“The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's ‘Principia’, is Darwin's ‘Origin of Species.”

“The people I love will mourn me, but I won't be around to commiserate. I become gloomy thinking of insensate things I will leave behind. My survivors will cram into plastic bags the tchotchkes I have lived with, expanding a landfill. I needn’t worry about my Andy Warhols. I fret over the striped stone that my daughter picked up at the pond, or my father’s desk lamp from college, or a miniature wooden milk wagon from the family dairy. My mother approaching ninety feared that we would junk the Hummel figurines that decorated her mantelpiece, kitsch porcelain dolls popular from the forties to the sixties. Thus, a box of them rests in my daughter’s attic. More important to me is this house, which my great-grandfather moved to in 1865—the family place for almost a century and a half. In the back chamber the generations stored everything broken or useless, because no one knew when they might come in handy. My kids and grandkids don’t want to live in rural isolation—why should they?—but it’s melancholy to think of the house emptied out. Better it should burn down.”

“And when the earth began to rumble and quake, as fear and frantic set in, he ran back inside the house past his wife and children, gathering all the valuables and things he thought of importance, and ran back to his car packing away. After making two trips in and out, he waited in the car for his family to come out, in fear they darted through the darkness and pelting cold rain. When everything calmed down, and the house was intact and safe, he returned putting everything back in its place, had the kids go to bed, told his wife he loves her and turned off the light.”

“[I]t is not by being richer or more powerful that a man becomes better; one is a matter of fortune, the other of virtue. Nor should she deem herself other than venal who weds a rich man rather than a poor, and desires more things in her husband than himself. Assuredly, whomsoever this concupiscence leads into marriage deserves payment rather than affection.”