True Material World Quotes & Sayings

In the material world below, she always felt lonely and there was nobody to understand her true nature. She always knew that she didn't belong to the world of humans. She thought they were all possessive and has limited ways of thinking. She always kept longing for her true home and could never find it. — Stevan V. Nikolic

It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They call for one another. Wisdom without science is unable to penetrate the full sapiential meaning of the created and the material cosmos. Science without wisdom leaves man enslaved to a world of unrelated objects in which there is no way of discovering (or creating) order and deep significance in man's own pointless existence. (p. 4) — Thomas Merton

There are, then, three sorts of religious experiences. The ancient rites, which are essentially propitiatory. The mysteries, which purge the soul and allow us to glimpse eternity. And philosophy, which attempts to define not only the material world but to suggest practical ways to the good life, as well as attempting to synthesize (as Iamblichos does so beautifully) all true religion in a single comprehensive system. — Gore Vidal

When your heart breaks, you can actually feel it, an agonizing stab of pain in a muscle that you know for a fact is just a glorified pump. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, the ordered universe changes, the solid ground beneath your feet becomes a slippery rock. The material world that seemed so safe and solid a moment ago becomes a shifting, ghostly place of shadows and mist. Matters that seemed settled and certain a long ago come suddenly unhinged, and you begin to doubt everything you ever knew to be true. — Helen Maryles Shankman

Worship without 'Gnan' [True Knowledge] will give material pleasures in the world and worship accompanied by 'Gnan' [True Knowledge] is known as 'Gnan' [True Knowledge] which gives the result of moksha [ultimate liberation]. — Dada Bhagwan

Beyond this world is another world for us. This world and its delights cater to the animal within us. These pleasures all fill our animal nature, while our real self slowly dies. They say, "The human being is a rational animal," yet we consist of two things. Lusts and desires feed our animality in this material world. But as for our true essence, its food is knowledge, wisdom, and the sight of God. The animality within us flees away from God, while our spiritual self flees away from this world. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The mystery of the world is revealed only to the person who can look upon the material world with his physical eyes and simultaneously has the spiritual vision necessary to see the unseen spiritual world. One who knows both Matter and Spirit is thus the true knower, and is a spiritually intelligent being. — Awdhesh Singh

I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in men's minds, perhaps from a lack of a willingness to feel themselves utterly alone. But now and then I feel that there is something beyond the material world, somethings we all feel intimations of but cannot explain. Underneath the religious vision there is the harsh fundamental reality of all our lives, because we know we must live and die as the animals we are. But sometimes I suspect that under that harsh reality there is a further vision, still deeper based, that comes nearer to true reality than the reality we know. — Winston Graham

The life of the spirit is the expression of Infinity and, as such, knows no artificial limits. True spirituality is not to be mistaken for an exclusive enthusiasm for some fad. It is not concerned with any "ism." When people seek spirituality apart from life, as if it had nothing to do with the material world, their search is futile. — Meher Baba

I think ... to give. In the best way I can, through song and through dance and through music. I mean, I am committed to my art. I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. I believe that to be the reason for the very existence of art. And I feel I was chosen as an instrument to just give music and love and harmony to the world. To children of all ages, and adults and teenagers ... I love people of all races from my heart, with true affection. — Michael Jackson

The true notion is that the material universe is a sign or an indication of what God is. We look at the purity of the snowflake and we see something of the goodness of God. The world is full of poetry: it is sin which turns it into prose. — Fulton J. Sheen

We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world - mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt. — R.D. Laing

...I believe that nothing that once was can be completely undone. Even if destroyed in the material world and forgotten by men, it remains and will remain alive in the memory of an infinite being for which the past as well as the future is always present, and that is thus the greatest, the only true historian, and the keeper of the eternal tradition of which even our best human traditions ...are but shadows and images. — Paul Oskar Kristeller

In some socialist states well-performed work is rewarded with moral stimulants instead of material ones. However, the moral stimulants cannot be explained by materialistic philosophy. It is the same case with the appeals for humanism, justice, equality, freedom, human rights, and so forth, which are all of religious origin. Certainly, everybody has the right to live as he thinks best, including the right not to be consistent with his own pattern. Still, to understand the world correctly, it is important to know the true origin of meaning and of the ideas ruling the world. — Alija Izetbegovic

Ubiquitous surveillance means that anyone could be convicted of lawbreaking, once the police set their minds to it. It is incredibly dangerous to live in a world where everything you do can be stored and brought forward as evidence against you at some later date. There is significant danger in allowing the police to dig into these large data sets and find "evidence" of wrongdoing, especially in a country like the US with so many vague and punitive laws, which give prosecutors discretion over whom to charge with what, and with overly broad material witness laws. This is especially true given the expansion of the legally loaded terms "terrorism," to include conventional criminals, and "weapons of mass destruction," to include almost anything, including a sawed-off shotgun. The US terminology is so broad that someone who donates $10 to Hamas's humanitarian arm could be considered a terrorist. — Bruce Schneier

No man should be viewed as having more to offer the world than another. We are all equals and every human being has something of value in their composition which makes them unique, just as every country has their own unique resources to share with the world. Never discount somebody based on material wealth, for true wealth is what cannot be seen. Never discount a country by what they can't provide your country, while their resources may benefit other lands in need. — Suzy Kassem

We all live our lives blindly believing in the people who make the decisions. Believing in science. Because the world is inscrutable and all information is hazy. We accept the existence of a round globe, of an atom's nucleus that sticks together like drops, of a shrinking universe
and the necessity of interfering with genetic material. Not because we know these things are true, but because we believe the people who tell us so. we are all proselytes of science. And, in contrast to the followers of other religions, we can no longer bridge the gap between ourselves and the priests. Problems arise when we stumble on an outright lie. And it affects our own lives ... that of a child who for the first time catches his parents in a lie he had always suspected. — Peter Hoeg

The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience, makes it posible with their help, and after suitable internal and external perparation ... to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak ... I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character of LSD as a sacred drug. — Albert Hofmann

For Leopardi the human animal was a thinking machine. This is the true lesson of materialism, and he embraced it. Humans are part of the flux of matter. Aware that they are trapped in the material world, they cannot escape from this confinement except in death. The good life begins when they accept this fact. — John N. Gray

[W]hereas a few hundred years ago man suspected and imagined that the universe was, for all intents and purposes, limitless, today he knows this to be true. His improved understanding of the material world around him has given him the means to make sure that his original conception of the universe was correct, in that every day its limits are being pushed aside and new horizons appear."

His Highness the Aga Khan's 1964 First World Socio-Economic Conference address (Karachi, Pakistan) — Aga Khan

One of the deep prejudices that the age of mechanism instilled in our culture, and that infects our religious and materialist fundamentalisms alike, is a version of the so-called genetic fallacy: to wit, the mistake of thinking that to have described a thing's material history or physical origins is to have explained that thing exhaustively. We tend to presume that if one can discover the temporally prior physical causes of some object - the world, an organism, a behavior, a religion, a mental event, an experience, or anything else - one has thereby eliminated all other possible causal explanations of that object. But this is a principle that is true only if materialism is true, and materialism is true only if this principle is true, and logical circles should not set the rules for our thinking. — David Bentley Hart

Toynbee emphasized the difference between technological-material progress and true progress, which he defined as spiritualization. He recognized that the Western world was indeed undergoing a crisis, which he attributed to the abandonment of religion for the cult of technology, nationalism, and militarism. For him this crisis had a name: secularism. If you know the cause of an illness, you can also find a cure: The religious heritage in all its forms had to be reintroduced, especially the "heritage of Western Christianity." Rather than a biologistic vision, he offered a voluntaristic one focused on the energy of creative minorities and exceptional individuals. — Pope Benedict XVI

I believe that the Hindu faith has developed the spiritual in its devotees at the expense of the material, and I think that in the Western world the contrary is true. By uniting the materialism of the West with the spiritualism of the East I believe much can be accomplished. It may be that in the attempt the Hindu faith will lose much of its individuality. — Swami Vivekananda

Jesus, it is true, shows no personal interest in gain, but he does speak of treasure in heaven and even of "mansions" as an inducement to follow him. Is it not further true that all religions down the ages have shown a keen interest in the amassment of material goods in the real world? — Christopher Hitchens

It's not true that you should first think up an idea for a better world and only then "put it into practice," but, rather, through the fact of your existence in the world, you create the idea or manifest it - create it, as it were, from the "material of the world," articulate it in the "language of the world. — Vaclav Havel

The documentary photographer aims his camera at the real world to record truthfulness. At the same time, he must strive for form, to devise effective ways of organizing and using the material. For content and form are interrelated. The problems presented by content and form must be so developed that the result is fundimentally [sic] true to the realities of life as we know it. The chief problem is to find a form that adequately represents the reality. — Paul Strand

The same is true for those who do not work hard to find
a good and rewarding job, perform the kind of work they
like to do, and secure a good position in their chosen
career. Even if they achieve a good standard of living, no
amount of material wealth can relieve the emptiness in
their hearts. They experience the same anxious spiritual
state. They live a life of discontentment because they are
so passionately attached to this world, they remain ambitious
for wealth and possessions, and they regard everything
and everyone around them as simply another opportunity
for personal profit. — Harun Yahya

Lambs think money and material things are the most important thing in the world. You can cheat, lie, steal, kill, be dumb as a rock, but if you can brag about money and having lots of things and your bragging is true, that bypasses everything. Money — Nnedi Okorafor

It's hurtful somehow to admit this thing and anyway that doesn't mean i'm losing my faith in this beautiful world. But these days now is the time where people have become so much more-excuse me-shallow. When all of the fancy things and outer beauty are demanded, and those who are lost enough to chase and manage to get those things, they will happen to get very nice response from social and able to expand their images and get famous and be seen as someone who has value. Meanwhile those who could see deeper and their souls are insecure of this mad world, they will have smaller space in width but they will dig deeper and deeper into their self, making space in height, finding the true meaning of their souls, the true essential unshakable truth that's beyond the fragile material worldly things. — Reza Rusandi

We live in a supermarket of ideas, faiths, practices, theories, ideologies, and much else besides. Never in human history have there been so many movements and ideas struggling to attract our attention. Added to this, the Western world is swamped by material goods and the Western mind is dominated by the goal of material success. In all this confusion, Zen stands out as a voice of sanity. It represents a different way of seeing the world, one based upon the rediscovery of who we really are and have always been, through revealing to us our true nature. — David Fontana

Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimolous to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. — Thomas Pynchon

The main trend with the theme episodes is that anywhere there is a misconception about the way the physical world works, we're finding fertile material. Whether it's in a phrase like "going over like a lead balloon" or "a needle in a haystack," or tackling movie myths or even a genre, like MacGyver or James Bond, we're finding that all these things can lead to people believing the world works in a certain way. It might not be correct, but we can test out if it's true. — Adam Savage

If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about ... like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. — F Scott Fitzgerald