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61 " I have every luxury imaginable, I own acres of land, and have enough money to buy the moon were it for sale. Though people think I have everything, it sometimes feels like my possessions own me; towering over me and reducing me into a small bundle of insignificance. "
― J. Matthew Nespoli
62 " We must approach our meditation realizing that 'grace,' 'mercy,' and 'faith' are not permanent inalienable possessions which we gain by our efforts and retain as though by right, provided that we behave ourselves. They are CONSTANTLY RENEWED GIFTS. The life of grace in our hearts is renewed from moment to moment, directly and personally by God in his love for us. "
― Thomas Merton , Contemplative Prayer
63 " Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables of Jesus deal with money. One out of ten verses in the New Testament deals with that subject. Scripture offers about five hundred verses on prayer, fewer than five hundred on faith, and over two thousand on money. The believer's attitude toward money and possessions is determinative. "
― John F. MacArthur Jr.
64 " For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. "
― Barack Obama
65 " The way to misuse our possessions is to use them as an insurance against the morrow. Anxiety is always directed to the morrow, whereas goods are in the strictest sense meant to be used only for to-day. "
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer , The Cost of Discipleship
66 " A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer:'I promise thee, this day thou shalt beWith Me in Paradise'(Luke 23:43)It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour. "
― Fulton J. Sheen , Life of Christ
67 " As their figures recede, it strikes Filsan as ironic that they had delayed fleeing so they could take as many of their possessions as possible, but now those very possessions prevent their flight. "
― Nadifa Mohamed , The Orchard of Lost Souls
68 " The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... [a man] may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson. "
― B.F. Skinner , Walden Two
69 " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' These men without possessions or power, these strangers on Earth, these sinners, these followers of Jesus, have in their life with him renounced their own dignity, for they are merciful. As if their own needs and their own distress were not enough, they take upon themselves the distress and humiliation of others. They have an irresistible love for the down-trodden, the sick, the wretched, the wronged, the outcast and all who are tortured with anxiety. They go out and seek all who are enmeshed in the toils of sin and guilt. No distress is too great, no sin too appalling for their pity. If any man falls into disgrace, the merciful will sacrifice their own honour to shield him, and take his shame upon themselves. "
70 " When you have left your life, you will be judged not for your possessions but for your contributions. "
71 " When standing in the middle of the marvelous mountains and deep forests, in the earthy smell of all beginnings and endings, I often find myself asking what I have if all my possessions were taken away. Without money, car, house; or power and fame, if there are any, who am I? In that very moment, being away from the external voices and left alone in nature, I find my answer. "
72 " For Delta blueman Robert Johnson and his contemporaries, the train was the eternal metaphor for the travelling life, and it still holds true today. There is no travel like it. Train lines carve through all facets of a nation. While buses stick to major highways and planes reduce the unfolding of lives to a bird's eye view, trains putter through the domains of the rich and the poor, the desperate and the idle, rural and urban, isolated and cluttered. Through train windows you see realities rarely visible in the landscaped tourist areas. Those frames hold the untended jungle of a nation's truth. Despite my shredded emotions, there was still no feeling like dragging all your worldly possessions onto a carriage, alone and anonymous, to set off into the unknown; where any and all varieties of adventures await, where you might meet a new best friend, where the love of your life could be hiding in a dingy cafe. The clatter of the tracks is the sound of liberation. "
73 " Fond memories are some of the richest possessions you can have. They never wear away no matter how often you reuse them ! "
74 " …The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader. "
― Oliver Goldsmith , The Vicar of Wakefield
75 " It contained a sad, but too common story of the hard-heartedness of the wealthy, and the misery endured by the children of the highborn. Blood is not water, it is said, but gold with them is dearer far than the ties of nature; to keep and augment their possessions being the aim and end of their lives, the existence, and, more especially, the happiness of their children, appears to them a consideration at once trivial and impertinent, when it would compete with family views and family greatness. To this common and and iniquitous feeling these luckless beings were sacrificed; they had endured the worst, and could be injured no more; but their orphan child was a living victim, less thought of than the progeny of the meanest animal which might serve to augment their possessions.Mrs. Baker felt some complacency on reading this letter; with the common English respect for wealth and rank, she was glad to find that her humble roof had sheltered a man who was the son — she did not exactly know of whom, but of somebody, who had younger sons and elder sons, and possessed, through wealth, the power of behaving frightfully ill to a vast number of persons. "
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley , Falkner
76 " For the only slavery is desire, and he who learns to let go, to climb the wind-swept hills of self-becoming, naked of all possessions and desire, will drink the mountain air of freedom, and find the peace that lies not in the satisfaction but in the controlling of desire. "
77 " If inanimate objects are left to stand in their world, and are not invited out to mingle with our sense of self, they will quietly console and delight us. But to bind possessions up closely with the mind is less than fair to both. "