Materialism Quotes

There are times when I could cheerfully walk out on the whole God damn setup. I don`t have to make pictures any more.When I first came out here to work from the New York stage,l I was carved up in all directions, a dumb actor tied to a slew of contractual clauses. Today I`m my own man - free, off the hook. This is a collective business, I know. But now it`s up to me to decide the stories we use and the kind of picture in which I`m prepared to get involved. I`m no longer the dumb and trusting ham being shuttled from picture to picture at someone else`s whim. I`m a company boss who has to make big decisions right or wrong, responsible only to myself in the long run. For years, we actors have been fighting for our so-called artistic freedom. We wanted to get rid of the moguls and their accountants. We damned the studio Shylocks for their materialism and lack of taste. Now, most of us are on our own. So what happens? This morning I had to call my office and scrap a production on which people had been working for months ... I decided it would be best to chuck it in rather than risk making a bad picture. All night I`ve been pacing up and down the house trying to make the right decision. I tell you there are times when I wish Hollywood actors had retained the status of bums and gypsies and left the planning to others. Right now, I`m tempted to say, `The hell with all of it.` The picture has changed, my friend. The old omnipotent caliphs are dying fast. Television plus the weight of years has weakened the survivors. It will need energy and a fresh executive approach to redirect the creative drive, re-channel the talent. The monopolies of the studios have been broken. The anti-trust laws have severed their distribution outlets. The shackling of actors to loaded long-term contracts is virtually a thing of the past. In effect, I have complete control over what I do. A year of two back this was considered some kind of victory of art over tyranny. Now I`m not so sure. I`m a free soul, you remember. Before I became an actor, I wanted to be a writer. Freedom of mind and action is important to me. Right now I`d like to take off for Mexico and fish for a while and swim and read books without wondering whether they would make a good picture. Now I`ll have to follow another production through from the drawing board to the cutting room. And then go out on the road and sell it with personal appearances. It can be stimulating. A challenge, as they say at Chasens. But there are times when actors like myself find themselves wishing we could resurrect Thalberg and pass the ball to him or people like him. The town`s wide open for any operator with the ability to finance, package and sell motion pictures. (1965)

An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.

The chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine as well as in nature Spirits is their materialism.

Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.

More recently, as faith gave way to materialism, anti-Semitism assumed a secular mode, harnessing itself to the dominant ideologies of both the Left and the Right.

We are challenging the philosophy of scientific materialism, not science itself,

A painted landscape is always more beautiful than a real one, because there`s more there. Everything is more sensual, and one takes refuge in its beauty. And man needs spiritual expression and nourishing. It`s why even in the prehistoric era, people would scrawl pictures of bison on the walls of caves. Man needs music, literature, and painting-all those oases of perfection that make up art-to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life.

Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.

Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.