SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: AVARICE & ALMSGIVING & MINIMALISM

  • “If you have God, then you have everything, even though you are deprived of everything.

    And if you do not have God, then you are deprived of everything, even though you possess everything.

    —Saint Antony the Great

  • Living in the world, surrounded by your family, you cannot possibly give away all your possessions. So you must aim at finding the golden mean, and strive to keep to it: never turn your back on the world, but see to it that the world does not engross you.

    Letters of Elder Macarius of Optina

  • However, Clement does not demand that the Christian should abstain from all refinements of culture nor does he wish him to take the vow of poverty. The decisive point is the attitude of the soul. As long as the Christian keeps his heart independent and free from attachment to the goods of this world, there is no reason why he should withdraw from his fellows. It is more important that the cultural life of the city should be imbued with the Christian spirit.

    Coptic Church Review
    V1 number 1
    Spring 1980

  • Why haven’t you bought one?

    I’ve become too practical. My philosophy on money is to make enough of it to not worry about it and to not buy things I don’t need. We don’t buy things to collect, we make them. Of course, I’m still tempted by old cars from time to time — I want to buy a Citroën SM and make it electric.

    Leaping into the future of cars with design visionary Rem D Koolhaas

  • How can a man be crucified to the world? When, after being freed from external things he begins to combat against pleasure itself, against the desire of having things, against his own will, and he puts to death his evil passions.

    —Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings

  • The Endowment Effect: refers to an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value.

  • I gravitate towards an extremely narrow band. That’s all that I want and I don’t want anything else.

    —Jeremy Strong

  • I say these things, and shall not cease saying them, causing continual pain and dressing the wounds. And this is done not for the sake of the fallen, but of those who are still standing. For they have departed, and their career is ended, but those who are yet standing have gained a more secure position through their calamities. What then, you say, shall we do? Do one thing only, hate riches, and love your life— cast away your goods; I do not say all of them, but cut off the superfluities. 

    Saint John Chrysostom, On the Vanity of Riches
    HOMILY Two
    After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive

  • And a Ferrari owner is not shallow and greedy, but animated by a poignant need for love.

    Bittersweet
    Susan Cain

  • In giving, one is released from the burden of the items one has, whereas the one who takes adds items to items. The major problem is when a person possesses items that he does not use, only to set them aside. I do not want to be harsh with anyone, but I need to tell you that you will give an account of every item in your house that you do not use and is only set aside.

    There might be a person who is in need of it. What is even worse than having unused items in your house, is allowing them to stay in your house until they are ruined and neither you nor anyone else was able to use them. For example, consider a person who holds on to a few extra clothes beyond need, until they are eaten by moth and neither he nor anyone else has benefitted from them.

    H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us