My Favorite Quotes on Materialism and Attachment

The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for until the cord be broken, the bird cannot fly. -- Saint John of the Cross

Simplicity is a narrow road of self-discipline, but the alternative -- money and materialism-- is only another master. ... Jesus never said material things in themselves are evil, but rather warned that they threaten our freedom. In this context, simplicity is not restriction, sacrifice, or denial. It is emancipation. -- Living More with Less

We can not become whole in a culture of materialism, in a culture with so much junk on television, in movies, so much crassness, so much sordidness, so much self-absorption. This is exactly the opposite of wholeness. There is grave danger that we can permit our culture to dehumanize us rather than help us become human.
- Cardinal O'Connor

"But the world, which today affords so many justifiable reasons for pride and hope, is also undergoing a terrible temptation to materialism which has been denounced by Our Predecessors and ourselves on many occasions.... It finds expression in the cult of the body, in excessive desire for comforts, and in flight from all the austerities of life. It encourages scorn for human life, even for life which is destroyed before seeing the light of day."

- Pope Pius XII, Warning Against Materialism On The Centenary Of The Apparitions At Lourdes, encyclical promulgated July 2, 1957

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