confusion of private property

• Property has so many duties that its possession to any large extent involves endless claims upon one, endless attention to business. If property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties make it unbearable.
• In consequence of the existence of private property, people are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them true pleasure and joy of living
• Man will kill himself by overwork in order to secure property, and really, considering the enormous advantages that property brings, one is hardly surprised. One’s regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful. He is also, under existing conditions, very insecure
• For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man is
• amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation, or culture, or refinement in pleasures, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance