SO GOOD QUOTES

  • 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

  • “Comfort is not one of my interests. You can feel comfortable in any environment that’s beautiful.”

    —Philip Johnson

    The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism
    Kyle Chayka

  • There are things which a person only needs to use once before being able to dispense with them. So what prevents him from giving whatever it is to others, so that they can benefit from it? He has nothing to lose by it!

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life

  • He was made miserable by abundance, wretched by the good things he possessed, and still more wretched by the good things he still expected to receive.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • “For while there is nothing so desirable that it does not become loathsome through continual enjoyment, what is taken rarely is enjoyed quite eagerly.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts