"Not much is needed: a small well-preserved homestead, a worthy craft reputably practiced, a tiny garden bearing evidence of cultivation by loving hands, a miner's spotless home, a few books or reproductions of classical art."

I won't be coy with you and make you guess the author of that quote, its Spengler speaking on Culture and property. I've always seen Spengler as a man dealing in immense causes and forces, so it came as a wonderful surprise to see him speak so beautifully on the simple life.

I think my mistake was in assuming that this is Spengler breaking with his typical penchant for the "immense," because what he is describing is NOT some minuscule humility, but rather an integral component of those great civilizational forces.

Spengler's perspective on this matter of property is precisely the type of advice I wish someone had given me when I felt directionless as a young man. I will continue the quote from above:

"The point is that these objects should be transformed into a personal world, should bear the stamp of the owner's personality. True possessions are soul, and only through that soul Culture. To estimate them by their money value is - either an incomprehension or a desecration."