Seven Peace Pilgrim Quotes on Possessions

Peace Pilgrim was a remarkable woman who walked across America many times spreading a message of peace, beginning during the Korean War in 1953 and ending with her death in 1981. She vowed to keep walking until there was peace in the world, and she walked more than 25,000 miles before she stopped counting.

After her death, Peace Pilgrim’s friends compiled her writings and interviews into a book called Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words. My copy of the book contains hundreds of underlined inspirational quotes, so I decided to pull some of them and curate them into lists that relate to our everyday lives. Page numbers are included.

This post contains seven quotes that relate to possessions.

Why do we feel so good after we clean out the attic, or the garage, or the basement? After we purge the possessions we no longer need or want? Could it be that having fewer possessions makes us happier? Perhaps. Long before Marie Kondo came along, there was Peace Pilgrim. Here are seven Peace Pilgrim quotes about possessions.

• Just after I dedicated my life to service, I felt I could no longer accept morethan I need while others in the world have lessthan they need (12).
• Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them (53).
• Anything that you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. We are not free (19).
• No one is truly free who is still attached to material things, or to places, or to people (19).
• Because of our preoccupation with materialism we often miss the best things in life, which are free (53).
• People have had to make up for their spiritual impoverishment by accumulating material things (128).
• It is those who have enough but not too much who are happiest (53).

Peace Pilgrim’s friends believed that to charge money for a book would be at odds with her core values and decided to offer it for free. They receive enough money in donations to publish and fulfill every request. You can order copies and other materials for free directly from Friends of Peace Pilgrim.

More Peace Pilgrim Posts and Quotations by Subject

Seven Things to Know About Peace Pilgrim