Quotes about Possessions

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications.

None of these is you.

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious

  "Demons frighten us because we set ourselves up to be frightened. We are overly attached to our reputations and possessions. When we love and desire what we should be rejecting, we are in conflict with our true selves.That's when the negative energies catch us and use our weapons against us. Instead of taking up what we have to defend ourselves, we put our swords in the hands of our enemies and make them attack us."

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

For the individual, the objective of livelihood is to acquire the four necessities or requisites of human existence: food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. Again, the acquisition of these four requisites, be it in sufficient amount or in surplus, is not the ultimate objective. The four requisites are merely a foundation upon which efforts to realize higher objectives can be based.

Some people are content with few possessions and need only a minimum to devote their energies to mental and spiritual development. Others cannot live happily on such a small amount; they are more dependent on material goods. As long as their livelihood does not exploit others, however, Buddhism does not condemn their wealth. Moreover, people who are charitably inclined can use their wealth in ways that are beneficial for society as a whole.

In opposition to contemporary urban values, Buddhism does not measure a person's or nation's worth by material wealth. Nor does it go to the opposite extreme, as do Marxist thinkers, and condemn the accumulation of wealth as an evil in and of itself. Instead, Buddhism judges the ethical value of wealth by the ways in which it is obtained, and the uses to which it is put.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

Zacharia Johnson argued that the new Constitution could never result in religious persecution or other oppression because: The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.

For it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.

My religious faith remains in possession of the field only after prolonged civil war with my naturally skeptical mind.

Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.

Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening-those which, when shared, multiply. Our least valuable possessions, on the other hand, are those which, when divided, are diminished.

Those who dismiss "revisionist" qualms about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as indulgences in peace-time sentimentality must count President Truman's own Chief of Staff among the bleeding hearts: "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. . . . The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion , and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. We were the first to have this weapon in our possession, and the first to use it. There is a practical certainty that potential enemies will have it in the future and that atomic bombs will some time be used against us."

In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a deliberate shaping of all things and from never being swept away, whatever the emotion into confusion or dullness.

TODAY can be a healthy unusual day for you-and for others-if you take time to give someone a smile . . . to express a word of kindness . . . to lend a helping hand to someone in need . . . ..to write a note of gratitude . . . to give a word of encouragement to someone who is temporarily overcome with problems . . . to share a portion of your material possessions with others.

We feel led to caution . . . against forming the bad habit of incurring debt and taking upon themselves obligations which frequently burden them heavier than they can bear, and lead to the loss of their homes and other possessions. We know it is the fashion of the age to use credit to the utmost limit. . . . We, therefore, repeat our counsel . . . to shun debt. Be content with moderate gains, and be not misled by illusory hopes of acquiring wealth. . . . Let our children also be taught habits of economy, and not to indulge in tastes which they cannot gratify without running into debt.

Allport, Gordon W., in his preface to Man's Search for Meaning: "WHY DO YOU NOT COMMIT SUICIDE?" Dr. Frankl asks his patients. . . . in one life there is love for one's children to tie to; in another life, a talent to be used; in a third, perhaps only lingering memories worth preserving. . . . As a long-time prisoner in bestial concentration camps he [Viktor Frankl] found himself stripped to naked existence. His father, mother, brother, and his wife died in camps or were sent to gas ovens, so that, excepting for his sister, his entire family perished in these camps. How could he - every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting extermination - how could he find life worth preserving?

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

Temper is a valuable possession - don't lose it.

Temporal possessions may vanish as the dew.

Happiness is not a matter of good fortune or worldly possessions. It's a mental attitude. It comes from appreciating what we have, instead of being miserable about what we don't have. It's so simple-yet so hard for the human mind to comprehend.

The mere possession of a gun is, in itself, an urge to kill, not only by design, but by accident, by madness, by fright, by bravado.

Books are among life's most precious possessions. They are the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that man builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, civilizations perish, but books continue. The perusal of a good book is, as it were, an interview with the noblest men of past ages who have written it.

With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labor from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eyewitnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but I shall be content if it is judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it. My history has been composed to be an everlasting possession, not the showpiece of an hour.

Whenever I hear a man or women express hatred for any race, I wonder just what it is in themselves they hate so much. You can always be sure of this: You cannot express hatred for anything or anybody unless you make use of the supply of hatred within yourself. The only hatred you can express is your own personal possession. To hate is to be enslaved by evil.

The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.

By forcing state governments to absorb the financial burden of implementing a federal regulatory program, Members of Congress can take credit for "solving" problems without having to ask their constituents to pay for the solutions with higher federal taxes. And even when the States are not forced to absorb the costs of implementing a federal program, they are still put in the position of taking the blame for its burdensomeness and for its defects....Under the present law, for example, it will be the [law enforcement official] and not some federal official who stands between the gun purchaser and immediate possession of his gun. And it will likely be the [law enforcement official], not some federal official, who will be blamed for any error.

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.

A man gains no possession better than a good woman, nothing more horrible than a bad one.