Possession Quotes - Page 24

• A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Facts, Pessimist, Optimist

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• We call upon people everywhere to work for peace, to forget the quiet comfort of their homes, to leave behind their fears and feeling of powerlessness, their privileges and possessions, and join us as active participants and co-workers for peace.

  Petra Kelly

  Home, People, Feelings

  Petra Karin Kelly (1984). “Fighting for Hope”, p.74, South End Press

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• Modern society has not rid itself of religion, as it fondly believes; it has merely replaced the historical religions by a host of idolatrous cults struggling for possession of the soul of man.

  Will Herberg

  Believe, Struggle, Men

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• Man's pursuit of physical desires and earthly possessions is an indication of his lack of conviction that the purpose of his existence is the attainment of spirituality.

  Abraham J. Twerski

  Men, Desire, Purpose

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• The first of all beautiful things is the continual possession of God.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Beautiful, Firsts, Beautiful Things

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• When I say the grace of wildness, what I mean is its autonomy, its self-possession, the fact that it has nothing to do with us. The grace is in the separation, the distance, the sense of a self-sustaining way of life.

  Verlyn Klinkenborg

  Distance, Mean, Self

  Verlyn Klinkenborg (2013). “More Scenes from the Rural Life”, p.81, Princeton Architectural Press

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• Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for [Augustus] to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious and less beneficial.

  Edward Gibbon

  War, Rome, Events

  Edward Gibbon, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812”, p.59, Modern Library

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• Science is a contemplative possession of reality through exclusion of all illusion, error and ignorance.

  Georges Canguilhem

  Ignorance, Reality, Errors

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• Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.

  Warren Buffett

  Buffets, Ends, Owners

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• Being and having in our society teaches us how to take possession of things, when it should rather initiate us in the art of letting go. For there is neither freedom nor real life without an apprenticeship in letting go.

  Gabriel Marcel

  Letting Go, Art, Real

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• ONLY in the release of the seen do you lay hold on the unseen, My little one. Heaven waits for those who are no longer bound to earth. The degree to which bondages are exchanged for liberties while still in the flesh is in proportion to the extent to which eternal values are held in higher esteem that worldly success and possessions. If a man loves Me, he will hold his soul more precious than his body and will pursue holiness at the expense of wealth; for to follow after that which perishes is to forfeit the prize of the high calling in Christ.

  Frances J Roberts

  Men, Heaven, Waiting

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• When anaesthetics were invented they were thought to be wicked as being an attempt to thwart God's will. Insanity was thought to be due to diabolic possession, and it was believed that demons inhabiting a madman could be driven out by inflicting pain upon him, and so making them uncomfortable. In pursuit of this opinion, lunatics were treated for years on end with systematic and conscientious brutality.

  Bertrand Russell

  Pain, Years, Insanity

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.107, Routledge

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• One of the best strengtheners of character and developers of stamina ... is to assume the part you wish to play; to assert stoutly the possession of whatever you lack.

  Orison Swett Marden

  Character, Play, Wish

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• You lose so many material possessions being on the road. You can't get too attached to stuff and you have to remember that people must never become possessions. People are spheres intersecting. You have to make sure that one sphere doesn't ever take over the other. Individuality is absolutely the most important thing

  Brian Molko

  People, Individuality, Important

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• To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Army, Pride, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.412

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• Scientists are entitled to be proud of their accomplishments, and what accomplishments can they call 'theirs' except the things they have done or thought of first? People who criticize scientists for wanting to enjoy the satisfaction of intellectual ownership are confusing possessiveness with pride of possession. Meanness, secretiveness and, sharp practice are as much despised by scientists as by other decent people in the world of ordinary everyday affairs; nor, in my experience, is generosity less common among them, or less highly esteemed.

  Peter Medawar

  Pride, Practice, People

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• It is Enterprise which build and improves the world's possessions...If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates whatever may be happening to Thrift; and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays, whatever Thrift may be doing.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Decay, World, May

  1930 A Treatise on Money.

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• There are perhaps only one or two things in the world which are not far more charming in desire than they are in possession.

  Anna Brackett

  Two, Desire, World

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• Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Self, Knowing, Soul

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• Ever since childhood I have scorned the commonplace limits so often set upon human ambition. Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone; best both for the body and the mind

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Ambition, Simple

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb”, p.227, Princeton University Press

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• Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be and do - and that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: and need restraining or suppressing.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Mad, Wicked, Church

  "Unreasonable behaviour" by David Beresford, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2007.

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• Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.

  Irvin D. Yalom

  Existence, Plans, Accidents

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• an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Rights, Law, Common

  Benjamin Franklin, Edmund Sears Morgan (2006). “Not Your Usual Founding Father: Selected Readings from Benjamin Franklin”, p.257, Yale University Press

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• If one's reputation is a possession, then of all my possessions, my reputation means most to me.

  Arthur Ashe

  Mean, Reputation, Ifs

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• Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Character, Mean

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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