There’s a popular quote attributed to the author G.K. Chesterton that’s been floating around the social media world that seems quite applicable for not only Christmas, but the entire year.

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”

Unfortunately, when you Google the phrase only a vast list of links to “quote pages” is available. At best, it seems likely the quotation is found in G.K. Chesterton’s The Crimes of England. Amazon has an image of the cover: 

You can read The Crimes of England online here, but the search feature doesn’t lend itself to finding the phrase either. And while your author did get sucked into reading the book for a little while, he ultimately decided that he didn’t have time today to read the whole thing to verify the veracity of the Chesterton attribution.

Nonetheless, the phrase is a good one and reminiscent of truths declared in Buddhism, Christianity, and other religious and philosophical beliefs about achieving the good life. How much stuff do we really need?