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

Randy Alcorn Cause Discipleship Giving Grip Hoarding Kingdom Possessions Purpose Selfish Sharing Surrender

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.

~ David Sedaris

David Sedaris Animals Deer Possessions

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,For what they have not, that which they possessThey scatter and unloose it from their bond,And so, by hoping more, they have but less;Or, gaining more, the profit of excessIs but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

~ William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare Desires Entitlement Excess Gain Greed Insatiability Possessions

My dear, you never will understand time, will you? You're always trying to be the things you were, instead of the person you are tonight. Why do you save those ticket stubs and theater programs? They'll only hurt you later. Throw them away, my dear.

~ Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury Nostalgia Possessions The Past

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)

~ Clare Winger Harris

Clare Winger Harris Life Material Possessions Materialism Possessions Uselessness Wasted Time

We buy things. We wear them or put them on our walls, or sit on them, but anyone who wants to can take them away from us. Or break them....Long after he's dead, someone else will own those stupid little boxes, and then someone after him, just as someone owned them before he did. But no one ever thinks of that: objects survive us and go on living. It's stupid to believe we own them. And it's sinful for them to be so important.

~ Donna Leon

Donna Leon Consumerism Death Materialism Ownership Possessions

Give with a free hand, but give only of your own.

~ J.r.r. Tolkien

J.r.r. Tolkien Generosity Give Giving Middle Earth Possessions Socialism Things Tolkien

I learned that you can't truly own anything, that true ownership comes only in the moment of giving.

~ Mia Farrow

Mia Farrow Giving Ownership Possessions

A heart anchored in money will only drift away.

~ Anthony Liccione

Anthony Liccione Desires Drift Money Possessions

Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.

~ Joshua Becker

Joshua Becker Minimalism Possessions Simplicity

You can own an elephant or a bank or power thereof but if there's no personal breast bliss all you own is a lot of dead atoms and ideas.

~ Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg Bliss Ownership Possessions

There is a wide difference between having poison and being poisoned. All apothecaries have poisons ready for special uses, but they are not consequently poisoned, because the poison is only in their shop, not in themselves; and so you many possess riches without being poisoned by them, so long as they are in your house or purse only, and not in your heart. It is the Christian's privilege to be rich in material things , and poor in attachment to them.

~ St. Francis De Sales

St. Francis De Sales Possessions Riches