All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century’s moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century.
It's always weird when people approach me to make an investment. I tell them, 'I don't need any more money. I'm good.' Then I wait for their expression. That part is entertaining, because people look at you like you're crazy when you say you don't need any more money. Who says that?
I think the world's a better place because Bill realized that his goal isn't to be the richest guy in the cemetery, right?
That is the job of the Catholic Church, to be a balance to the materialistic drives of our culture and of economy.
Money is small and the soul stands tall. All those who don't realize this, fall.
I realised how rich I had become and I asked myself, 'Do I really want to be the richest person in the cemetery?'
More wealth doesn't fix your life. More wealth makes you more of what you already are.
We wanted to more richly experience why we were alive, not just make a better life, and so people went in search of things. The great thing that came from those that time was to realize that there was definitely more to life than the materialism of the late sixties and early sixties. We were going in search of something deeper.
The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living.
Those who would most scornfully repudiate Christianity as a mere "opiate of the people" have a contempt for the rich, that is, for all mankind except the poor.
The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn't know which was which.
The Truth doesn't need your cooperation to exist. All forms of cult, all forms of hype, all forms of delusion do require your participation in order to exist. I've looked into marginal areas of human experience -historical and otherwise- with a rational mind, and what I've found is that doorways into the miraculous are far fewer than the publicists of the New Age would have us believe. On the other hand, they are not as rare as the proponents of radical reductionism and materialism would have us believe. There are doorways out of the mundane.
It is good to taste for yourself everything you need to know. That worldly pleasures and wealth are not good things, I learned even as a child. I knew it for a long time, but only now have I experienced it.
I wore the gold for some reasons. One, as a Christian.When Jesus was born wise men bring him gold.No wise man brought bling. Bling is not in The Bible.
For a time it seemed inevitable that the surging tide of agnosticism and materialism would sweep all before it. There were those who did not dare utter what they thought. Many thought the case hopeless and the cause of religion lost once and for ever. But the tide has turned and to the rescue has come - what? The study of comparative religions. By the study of different religions we find that in essence they are one.
Time and experience have taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way - hence we shouldn't ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live and what they give - that's a much better benchmark.
Hippies started the ecology movement. They combated racism. They liberated sexual stereotypes, encouraged change, individual pride, and self-confidence. They questioned robot materialism. In four years they managed to stop the Vietnam War. They got marijuana decriminalized in fourteen states during the Carter Administration.
Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.
I don't really shop any more. I only do it when I have to. I think it is very overrated.
So you begin to wonder if Leonia's true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity.
I say that a university is a house of knowledge, not for showing off Dolce & Gabbana bags. Students should go to university in uniform.
In my days in Russia, I visited some very rich guys. I visited big ships, private airplanes, houses - and I know for sure I don't want this for myself.
Speak the truth. Speak it loud and often, calmly but insistently, and speak it, as the Quakers say, to power. Material accumulation is not the purpose of human existence. All growth is not good. The environment is a necessity, not a luxury. There is such a thing as enough.
Rather than earn money, it was Thoreau's idea to reduce his wants so that he would not need to buy anything. As he went around preaching this ingenious idea, the shopkeepers of Concord hoped he would drop dead.
I personally think that money can do very little. And this has been my experience all across.
