Wealth

"Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth."

"I'm a very large creator of wealth, I like that. I like finding new companies and investing in them very early and seeing an enormous amount of wealth being generated."

"I wonder why rich people always grow fat—I suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them."

"As I always say, keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich, and then find out which is which."

"Though they suffer no restriction of choice, in reality even multi-millionaires soon reach the outer limits of purely personal gratification—which should be some satisfaction to the rest of us."

"The rich prided themselves upon their superiority to those who were less favored; but they had obtained their riches by violation of the law of God. They had neglected to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to deal justly, and to love mercy. They had sought to exalt themselves and to obtain the homage of their fellow creatures. ... They have sold their souls for earthly riches and enjoyments, and have not sought to become rich toward God. The result is, their lives are a failure; their pleasures are now turned to gall, their treasures to corruption."

"The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions."

"Lord, I do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest."

"What Jesus meant, was this. He said to man, ‘You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don’t imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry, continual wrong. Personal property hinders Individualism at every step.’"

"I have mental joys and mental health, Mental friends and mental wealth, I've a wife that I love and that loves me; I've all but riches bodily."

"Since all the riches of this world May be gifts from the devil and earthly kings, I should suspect that I worshipped the devil If I thanked my God for worldly things."

"But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, When we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes too late."

"Midas-eared Mammonism, double-barrelled Dilettantism, and their thousand adjuncts and corollaries, are not the Law by which God Almighty has appointed this His universe to go."

"Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community."

"Las necedades del rico por sentencias pasan en el mundo."

"Non esse cupidum, pecunia est; non esse emacem, vectigal est; contentum vero suis rebus esse, maximae sunt, certissimaeque divitiae."

"Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms."

"Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover."

"If your Riches are yours, why don't you take them with you to t'other world?"

"Who hath not heard the rich complain Of surfeits, and corporeal pain? He barr'd from every use of wealth, Envies the ploughman's strength and health."

"The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock."

"And to hie him home, at evening's close, To sweet repast, and calm repose. * * * From toil he wins his spirits light, From busy day the peaceful night; Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health."

"A little house well fill'd, a little land well till'd, and a little wife well will'd, are great riches."

"Dame Nature gave him comeliness and health, And Fortune (for a passport) gave him wealth."

"For wealth, without contentment, climbs a hill, To feel those tempests which fly over ditches."

"It cannot be repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of the Old World axiom—Richesse oblige."

"Base wealth preferring to eternal praise."

"These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!"

"Know from the bounteous heavens all riches flow; And what man gives, the gods by man bestow."

"Imperat aut servit collecta pecunia cuique."

"Omnis enim res, Virtus, fama, decus, divina, humanaque pulchris Divitiis parent."

"Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior alga est."

"And you prate of the wealth of nations, as if it were bought and sold, The wealth of nations is men, not silk and cotton and gold."

"We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

"Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, * * * with joy To see how plump my bags are and my barns."

"Private credit is wealth, public honour is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight; strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth."

"Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa Fortuna."

"Dives fieri qui vult Et cito vult fieri."

"Facile est momento quo quis velit, cedere possessione magnæ fortunæ; facere et parare eam, difficile atque arduum est."

"The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn."

"It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse."

"I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich."

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

"How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right? The soil was given to the rich and poor in common—wherefore, oh, ye rich, do you unjustly claim it for yourselves alone? Nature gave all things in common for the use of all; usurpation created private rights. Property hath no rights. The earth is the Lord's, and we are his offspring. The pagans hold earth as property. They do blaspheme God."

"The international community ... allows nearly 3 billion people—almost half of all humanity—to subsist on $2 or less a day in a world of unprecedented wealth."

"He called to mind all the millionaires he had ever read or heard of; they didn't seem to get much fun out of their riches. The majority of them were martyrs to dyspepsia. They were often weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of their position; the only people who were unable to obtain an audience of them at any time were their friends; they lived in a glare of publicity, and every post brought them hundreds of begging letters, and a few threats; their children were in constant danger from kidnappers, and they themselves, after knowing no rest in life, could not be certain that even their tombs would be undisturbed. Whether they were extravagant or thrifty, they were equally maligned, and, whatever the fortune they left behind them, they could be absolutely certain that, in a couple of generations, it would be entirely dissipated."

"Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities."

"The use of culture is that it helps us, by means of its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: “Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?”"

"There are, while human miseries abound, A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth, Without one fool or flatterer at your board, Without one hour of sickness or disgust."

"The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others."