“In…the book of Egoism, it is written, possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.”
Source: The Egoist http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/egost11.txt (1879), Ch. 14.
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George Meredith45
British novelist and poet of the Victorian era 1828–1909Related quotes
“Vampires. They wrote the book on possessive.”
Charlaine Harris book Dead to the World
Source: Dead to the World
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) writer and salonist
In "My Country 'tis of Thee", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)
Context: I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself.
Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals.
Individual superiority can alone feed the soul and give back through some materialisation of itself this individualised wealth of being.
“The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.”
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer
“An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.”
Rarum id quidem nihil enim aeque gratum est adeptis quam concupiscentibus.
Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer
Letter 15, 1.
Letters, Book II
“The modernist object does not possess inner life; only internal conflicts.”
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) Colombian writer and philosopher
Sucesivos Escolios a un Texto Implícito (1992)