Materialism Quotes

Our lives are defined by fear from the very time we are born to the time we bid adieu to this material world.

~ Faraaz Kazi

In the distance Richard could see the skyscrapers of Los Angeles rising out of the ocean; barnacle crusted concrete and steel emerging from crashing waves. Once a symbol of economic might, they were now a macabre monument to the mortality of man.

~ Alexander Ferrick

Don't envy what people have, emulate what they did to have it.

~ Tim Fargo

In a materialistic society, an employed boy is older than an unemployed man.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. . . . Children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. . . . The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have—to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return.

~ Charles Alexander Eastman

All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre.

~ Barbara W. Tuchman

She feared that she would become a slave to superficial, symbolic duties.

~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

New York's perennial attraction was shopping.

~ Erik Larson

Civilization is in fact the longest story of all. Civilization can persist through a series of economies.

~ Fernand Braudel

Whatever thing a man gets quickly enraged about is his idol, and whatever thing he makes his idol becomes his religion.

~ Criss Jami

Man is a product of nature, a part of the Universe. The Universe is operated under exact natural laws. Man is a product of millions of years of evolution. He adapts himself to the laws of nature or he perishes.

~ James Hervey Johnson

As students grow more and more accustomed to assuming materialism and naturalism in their academic work, the concept of creation by God gradually tends to become less real to them. It is not so much that any single finding undermines their faith; rather, the day-to-day practice of thinking in naturalistic terms about academic subjects makes it awkward to think differently when it comes to religion.

~ Phillip E. Johnson

It's not enough, and so limiting, to teach the simplistic value of a designer's material wear. Give children the gift of values that will last far beyond [a] fad's temporal popularity.

~ T.f. Hodge

Miller believes, like many theists, that religion brings us beyond the bounds of materialism. (Ironically he insists on a material explanation [evolution] for our existence.) However, he fails to explain how religion does this. Will religion enable us to overcome Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Will the secrets of Miller's black box of quantum mechanics be revealed? Will chance and chaos be things of the past? If religion can't help us solve these mysteries, take us beyond the bounds of our material understanding, then Miller's belief is just so much wishful thinking. However, during one of his more coherent, non-blonde moments, Miller makes one of his strongest points: Science only concerns itself with the material universe, so we must look beyond science if we are to have morals. I can't say I disagree. However, morals don't have to come from an imaginary sky daddy. They could be rationally conceived and practiced to create an orderly society. And, why should science limit itself to the material universe? Morals can be tried and tested; bad morals can be weeded out while good morals are preserved. Such has already happened. Consider the fact that most parents no longer obey God's command to kill their children when they misbehave. Yet, those same parents abstain from stealing and adultery.

~ G.m. Jackson

Material possessions do not last, but memories last forever.

~ Margo Vader

Your shyness alone will bring you more emotional and material losses than all of your other negative attributes.

~ Amit Kalantri

Intelligent design theorists have learned a few lessons from the failures of their predecessors and have devised a more sophisticated strategy to compete head on with evolution. One of the main things they [intelligent design creationists] have learned is what not to say. A major element of their strategy is to advance a form of creation that not only omits any explicit mention of Genesis but is also usually vague, if not mute, about any of the specific claims about the nature of Creation, the separate ancestry of humans and apes, the explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophic global flood, or the age of the earth - items that readily identified young-earth creationism as a thinly disguised biblical literalism.

~ Robert T. Pennock

If a faithful account was rendered of man's ideas upon the Divinity, he would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word Gods has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of natural, the source of known causes ceases to be visible: as soon as he loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by ascribing it to his gods; thus giving a vague definition to an unknown cause, at which either his idleness, or his limited knowledge, obliges him to stop. When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon, the novelty or the extent of which strikes him with wonder, but of which his ignorance precludes him from unravelling the true cause, or which he believes the natural powers with which he is acquainted are inadequate to bring forth; does he, in fact, do any thing more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?

~ Paul Henri Thiry D'holbach

I've nothing against eye make-up and lipstick. But the fact is that we’re actually living on a planet in space. For me that’s an extraordinary thought. It’s mind-boggling just to think about the existence of space at all. But there are girls who can’t see the universe for eye liner.

~ Jostein Gaarder

When a man's girlfriend's parents ask him what it is that he does for a living: they’re not really concerned about him, they’re concerned about their daughter’s tummy.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We must reject the lie of materialism. Your STUFF, does not dictate Your STATURE.

~ Jayce O'neal

There have been many authorities who have asserted that the basis of science lies in counting or measuring, i.e. in the use of mathematics. Neither counting nor measuring can however be the most fundamental processes in our study of the material universe—before you can do either to any purpose you must first select what you propose to count or measure, which presupposes a classification.

~ Roy A. Crowson

The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is ‘body’ and that which is not ‘body’ is no part of the universe, and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere.

~ Thomas Hobbes

If everything must have a cause, of course, this also applies to God; if God can exist in isolation, then why not the universe?

~ Etienne Vermeersch

The Hartle-Hawking derivation of the unconditional probability of the existence of a universe of our sort is inconsistent with classical theism. The unconditional probability is very high, near to 1. For purposes of simplification, we are saying the probability is 99 percent; there is a 99 percent probability that a universe of our sort—I will call it a Hartle-Hawking universe—exists uncaused.The universe exists uncaused since the probability amplitude is determined by a summation or path integral over all possible histories of a finite universe. That is, the probability that a Hartle-Hawking universe exists follows directly from the natural-mathematical properties of possible finite universes; there is no need for a cause, probabilistic or otherwise, for there to be a 99 percent probability that a Hartle-Hawking universe will exist.This is not consistent with classical theism. According to classical theism, if a universe is to have any probability of existing, this probability is dependent on God's dispositions, beliefs, or choices. But the Hartle-Hawking probability is not dependent on any supernatural states or acts; Hartle and Hawking do not sum over anything supernatural in their path integral derivation of the probability amplitude.Furthermore, according to classical theism, the probability that a universe exist without divine causation is 0, and the probability that if a universe exists, it is divinely caused, is 1. Thus, the probabilities that are implied by classical theism are inconsistent with the probabilities implied by the Hartle-Hawking wave function of the universe.

~ Quentin Smith

...in principle, one can predict everything in the universe solely from physical laws. Thus, the long-standing 'first cause' problem intrinsic in cosmology has been finally dispelled.

~ Li Zhi Fang

Stop being overly materialistic, and start building your empire. Your future self would surely love you if you do so.

~ Hafiz

Don't complicate your life by surrounding yourself with people who see life as a competition about who has the most material possessions.

~ Hafiz

There is absolutely a big difference between getting a date and getting a husband. Being overly materialistic can get a lady some dates, but an impeccable character will surely get her a husband of a lifetime. Men that know what they truly want in life, as well as how to treat a lady like a Queen, tend to look for women with great character, and not women that hide behind their materialistic illusions. Every female can afford a makeup and other accessories, but not too many females have good manners. Therefore, it is quite a difficult task to get a good husband by depending on your physical appearance alone, because a lot of ladies are already using the same strategy. So why not dare yourself to be different and take a positive route?

~ Hafiz

It is very awkward how some people don't have any investment, wouldn't buy self-development books, complain that organic foods are too expensive for them to afford, but yet they have all the costly brand name clothes, shoes, bags, and other expensive accessories.

~ Hafiz

Imagine if all the car makers in the world were to sit down together to design one extremely simple, embellishment-free, functional car that was made from the most environmentally-sustainable materials, how cheap to buy and humanity-and-Earth-considerate that vehicle would be. And imagine all the money that would be saved by not having different car makers duplicating their efforts, competing and trying to out-sell each other, and overall how much time that would liberate for all those people involved in the car industry to help those less fortunate and suffering in the world. Likewise, imagine when each house is no longer designed to make an individualised, ego-reinforcing, status-symbol statement for its owners and all houses are constructed in a functionally satisfactory, simple way, how much energy, labour, time and expense will be freed up to care for the wellbeing of the less fortunate and the planet.

~ Jeremy Griffith

Materialism sets us free from sin-by proving that there is no such thing as sin. There's just antisocial behavior, which we can control with measures like laws and educational programs.

~ Phillip E. Johnson

Yes, I'm a materialist. I'm willing to be shown wrong, but that has not happened — yet. And I admit that the reason I'm unable to accept the claims of psychic, occult, and/or supernatural wonders is because I'm locked into a world-view that demands evidence rather than blind faith, a view that insists upon the replication of all experiments — particularly those that appear to show violations of a rational world — and a view which requires open examination of the methods used to carry out those experiments.

~ James Randi

I have a firm belief in such things as, you know, the water, the Earth, the trees and sky. And I'm wondering, it is increasingly difficult to find those elements in nature, because it's nature I believe in rather than some spiritual thing.

~ Bill Blass

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

~ Alexander Pope

Since science is essentially objective, involving the study of how things actually are, materialism would therefore seem to be its antithesis, since its starting point is the desire to impose upon the natural world a particular and limited way of looking at it.

~ Melanie Phillips

On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

How good something is should never be determined by its cost, designer, origin, or its perceived value by others.

~ Ashly Lorenzana

Everything that I hold will eventually be gone. Subsequently, the quality of my life will depend on whether I choose to appreciate those things ‘now’ or wait until ‘then.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

We may see the small Value God has for Riches, by the People he gives the

~ Alexander Pope