Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.
quote by Peace Pilgrim
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
A man is poor not because he scorns possessions, but because he possesses nothing.
I draw from my family and my friends and I feel like that small-town person. The achievements, the materialistic possessions have really become to mean less. They mean nothing.
quote by Sheryl Crow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power.
quote by Joan Didion
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In our rich consumers' civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions.
quote by Max Lerner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself. Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals.
quote by Natalie Clifford Barney
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We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a 'common goal' of nature as I can guess at. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have music.
quote by Lewis Thomas
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I just love the fact that a man possesses something that a woman can never understand because we don't have the experiences of it and that a woman possesses something that the man doesn't understand because only she possesses it.
quote by Cameron Diaz
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We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language.... We have affection We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a "common goal" of nature as I can guess at. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have music.
Lewis Thomas in The Medusa and the Snail (1979)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You Do Not See The Wind....
when you are exhausted
to even write a letter
do not be afraid about
losing yourself
into an abyss of
perhaps having outlived
your usefulness
this is a normal occurrence
when you have given up what
does not rightfully belong to you
because you only live on
a borrowed house and what you
have is only the body
of the sea hermit
because you bring nothing here
and so when you finally leave
you ought to bring nothing too
with you
but what place are you going?
do you really know?
what do you have here?
do you really know?
when you are tired now
because there are no answers
bear in mind, always bear in mind,
that that is the only possible truth
of our earthly existence
deep in our hearts
we know of a country
and inside it
is a paradise
it is certain but we do not know when
it is true but we do not know why
just be patient
just be patient
just be patient
here comes the wind
and you do not see it....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
quote by Khalil Gibran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.
quote by Simone Weil
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An eye is small but its usefulness is great.
What could be your achievement
What could be your achiement
Your position
Your property
Your power
Your managing skills
Your wealth
Your happiness
Your health
Your fame and name
And so many other skills
None of the above
These all will vanish
And will go into oblivion
Once you depart
And you are on the path
Of disappearing
As each second, minute, hour, day
Is racing you nearer
To that ultimate end
All the above
Will go and you are
Likely to be lost
From the memory of
Your own near and dears,
Leave alone the world
All your materialistic acquisitions
Are likely to lead to family feuds
And there will be total discomfort
Among your own people
History is replete with such cases
You will, in fact, be cursed
For all the earnings you made
Be it by fair means or otherwise
We have seen small possessions of
Even great people
Created warring situations
When they came up for auctions
With regard to their realisations
Materialistic achievement is no
Achievement at all
Your achievement could be that
Which will make others remember you
For years, if not centuries, ahead
This achievement is possible
With your thought process
A process that will help others,
When they put your thought processes into action
Can enjoy a living
In total harmony with the nature and surrounding
In total love for all living things around
In total peace and happiness
In total control of everything happening around them
In total satisfaction of having lived
Your achievement is
That thought process
Which you leave behind expressed
Written or oral
In an aim to help
The future world live
In totally fearless and free society
With no hatred or threat
With no doubts regarding their future
Your achievement is
Your positive, productive and futuristic
Thought process
And make all efforts
To earn this great treasure
poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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A man possesses talent; genius possesses the man.
quote by Isaac Stern
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fully Indebted To Creditors
Being labelled lazy,
Because one has not embraced the choice...
Of adapting to a materialistic way of life.
May have its benefits.
Since today those materialistic,
And fully indebted to creditors...
Can not use lazy as an excuse,
To free themselves of a tightening noose...
Being squeezed without a shown empathy,
By every overdue payment owed.
Being labelled lazy,
Because one has not embraced the choice...
Of adapting to a materialistic way of life.
May have its benefits.
The most obvious one...
Is observing those whose mouths are now closed,
As signs of foreclosure appears on once prized property...
They bragged about owning.
While those depicted lazy,
Still maintain their pride and dignity.
They never leased or mortgaged their sensibilities,
To prove their self worth to anyone.
And...
Feelings of embarrassement has ever occurred,
As a leisurely stroll through the nieghborhood...
Is now regarded as healthy and good exercise,
By those shocked and locked out...
Of their materialistic worlds.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man.
quote by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In the most intimate, hidden and innermost ground of the soul, God is always essentially, actively, and substantially present. Here the soul possesses everything by grace which God possesses by nature.
quote by Johannes Tauler
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Maybe altruism is our most primitive attribute out of reach, beyond our control. Or perhaps it is immediately at hand, waiting to be released, disguised now, in our kind of civilization as affection or friendship or attachment. I can’t see why it should be unreasonable for all human beings to have strands of DNA coiled up in chromosomes, coding out instincts for usefulness and helpfulness. Usefulness may turn out to be the hardest test of fitness for survival, more important than aggression, more effective, in the long run, than grabbiness.
quote by Lewis Thomas
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to thing when you have outlived the first interest and not yet the second which comes with a sort of mastery.
quote by Janet Erskine Stuart
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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