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What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
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environmental-protection
possessions
environment
materialism
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Henry David Thoreau |
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Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
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poverty
wealth
satisfaction
possessions
longing
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Alain de Botton |
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"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
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metaphor
history
science
illimitable
inexplicability
principia
solidity
origin-of-species
possessions
intellectual
business
biology
charles-darwin
goal
justification
darwin
infinite
knowledge
ocean
isaac-newton
newton
unknown
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Thomas Henry Huxley |
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If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now. Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor--if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.
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slavery
america
us
united-states-of-america
white-people
possessions
native-americans
usa
united-states
ownership
race-relations
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Colson Whitehead |
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Those that much covet are with gain so fond, For what they have not, that which they possess They scatter and unloose it from their bond, And so, by hoping more, they have but less; Or, gaining more, the profit of excess Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain, That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.
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greed
gain
insatiability
possessions
excess
entitlement
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William Shakespeare |
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We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire.
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self-knowledge
happiness
status
possessions
anxiety
materialism
desire
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Alain de Botton |
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"Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man's inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere,--in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?"
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travel
possessions
technology
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Nathaniel Hawthorne |
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To have so little, and it of so little value, was to be quaintly free.
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possessions
materialism
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Wallace Stegner |
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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.
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death
possessions
ownership
materialism
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Donna Leon |
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"The meaning of life in western secular society is to be successful. So many people are success mad and they are encouraged to reach for something and have so called "worthwhile goals". Money, fame, power, good looks, possessions are the indicators of success and the media and advertising companies exploit this. People are conditioned to believe that they can only feel happy or good about themselves if they have these things. This of course is not true."
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money
looks
lies
good
meaning
success
happiness
life
truth
companies
conditioned
indicators
what
possessions
conditioning
is
of
fame
successful
western
society
goals
secular
media
deceit
power
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Tim Crawshaw |
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Once a person has become detached from his possessions, his customary duties, his moments of solitude, where is he? What is he?
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solitude
possessions
duties
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Patricia Highsmith |
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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.
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possessions
the-past
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Ray Bradbury |
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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.)
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possessions
hoarding
giving
sharing
discipleship
selfish
grip
purpose
kingdom
surrender
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Randy Alcorn |
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Whoever has the better stuff wins. Sound familiar, American lackeys of late-stage capitalism?
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possessions
capitalism
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Colson Whitehead |
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What we have, we all must lose--that applied to everything, even to that which we thought we had the greatest right. We were tenants of this earth--nothing more.
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earth
possessions
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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When we are sad...it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to things that don't change.
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grief
loss
comforting
possessions
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Donna Tartt |
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There is a powerful relationship between our true spiritual condition and our attitude and actions concerning money and possessions.
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money
possessions
materialism
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Randy Alcorn |