I stumbled upon a treasure-trove of quotes while searching for a CS Lewis quote about the evil of advertising.

“There is a burden of care in getting riches; fear of keeping them; temptation in using them; guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them; and a burden of account at last to be given concerning them.”

-Matthew Henry (1662-1714)

Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about ‘misery.’

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) Letters to Arthur Greeves, 13 January 1917

Whither thou goest, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

-Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), On the Road, 1957

Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seeks for goods before they seek God.

-Bernard of Clairvaux, (1091-1153) On the Love of God

Give the public the ‘image’ of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.

Madeline L’Engle (1918-2007), A Circle of Quiet, 1972

When I walk into a grocery store and look at all the products you can choose, I say, “No king ever had anything like I have in my grocery store today.”

-Bill Gates quoted in Parade Magazine, 14 Jul 02

Sunday Jesus has some words for us:
See Luke 18:18-30

We’ll think about words to the wealthy (us!):
“Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.”

-G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Commonwealth, 1933

1. Jesus, Lord of life and glory,
Bend from heaven thy gracious ear;
While our waiting souls adore thee,
Friend of helpless sinners, hear:

2. From the depth of nature’s blindness,
From the hardening power of sin,
From all malice and unkindness,
From the pride that lurks within,

Refrain: By thy mercy, O deliver us, good Lord
By thy mercy, O deliver us, good Lord, good Lord.

3. When temptation sorely presses,
In the day of Satan’s power,
In our times of deep distresses,
In each dark and trying hour.

4. When the world around is smiling,
In the time of wealth and ease,
Earthly joys our hearts beguiling,
In the day of health and peace. Refrain

5. In the weary hours of sickness,
In the times of grief and pain,
When we feel our mortal weakness,
When all human help is vain.

6. In the solemn hour of dying,
In the awful judgment day,
May our souls, on thee relying,
Find thee still our Rock and Stay. Refrain

© 2004 Greg Thompson Music.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

1. What do you love? Hate?
2. What do you want, desire, crave, lust, and wish for? What desires do you serve and obey?
3. What do you seek, aim for, and pursue?
4. Where do you bank your hopes?
5. What do you fear? What do you not want? What do you tend to worry about?
6. What do you feel like doing?
7. What do you think you need? What are your ‘felt needs’?
8. What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish?
9. What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? What do you organize your life around?
10. Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, escape, pleasure, and security?
11. What or whom do you trust?
12. Whose performance matters? On whose shoulders does the well being of your world rest? Who can make it better, make it work, make it safe, make it successful?
13. Whom must you please? Whose opinion of you counts? From whom do you desire approval and fear rejection? Whose value system do you measure yourself against? In whose eyes are you living? Whose love and approval do you need?
14. Who are your role models? What kind of person do you think you ought to be or want to be?
15. On your deathbed, what would sum up your life as worthwhile? What gives your life meaning?
16. How do you define and weigh success and failure, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, in any particular situation?
17. What would make you feel rich, secure, prosperous? What must you get to make life sing?
18. What would bring you the greatest pleasure, happiness, and delight? The greatest pain or misery?
19. Whose coming into political power would make everything better?
20. Whose victory or success would make your life happy? How do you define victory and success?
21. What do you see as your rights? What do you feel entitled to?
22. In what situations do you feel pressured or tense? Confident and relaxed? When you are pressured, where do you turn? What do you think about? What are your escapes? What do you escape from?
23. What do you want to get out of life? What payoff do you seek out of the things you do?
24. What do you pray for?
25. What do you think about most often? What preoccupies or obsesses you? In the morning, to what does your mind drift instinctively?
26. What do you talk about? What is important to you? What attitudes do you communicate?
27. How do you spend your time? What are your priorities?
28. What are your characteristic fantasies, either pleasurable or fearful? Daydreams? What do your night dreams revolve around?
29. What are the functional beliefs that control how you interpret your life and determine how you act?
30. What are your idols and false gods? In what do you place your trust, or set your hopes? What do you turn to or seek? Where do you take refuge?
31. How do you live for yourself?
32. How do you live as a slave of the devil?
33. How do you implicitly say, “If only…” (to get what you want, avoid what you don’t want, keep what you have)?
34. What instinctively seems and feels right to you? What are your opinions, the things you feel true?
35. Where do you find your identity? How do you define who you are?