People who have few possessions cling tightly to those they have. That is one of the facts that make life so discouraging.

SHERWOOD ANDERSON, "The Egg," The Triumph of the Egg

A man that simply loads himself down with possessions of which he has no actual need, when he dies slips out of them--as a little insect might slip out of some parasite shell into which it has ensconced itself--into the grave, and is forgotten.

E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words

How many men you see in this world who have become merely the pack-horses of their own possessions; who go through life the veriest slaves to that which they toil for, wasting their health and strength, and, it may be, their higher powers--even their consciences and souls--in the mere effort to accumulate! How many men of this sort you see stumbling along in life like a camel with his load! In fact you do not see the man himself--only the pack of his possessions on his back. He finds it hard work to squeeze through the needle's eye; and when he dies he is hardly missed; for that by which he was known--that of which he was the slave, and not the master--remains behind.

E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words