wealth

"The devout and politically free inhabitant of New England is a kind of Laocoön who makes not the least effort to escape from the serpents which are crushing him. Mammon is his idol which he adores not only with his lips but with the whole force of his body and mind. In his view the world is no more than a Stock Exchange, and he is convinced that he has no other destiny here below than to become richer than his neighbor. Trade has seized upon all his thoughts, and he has no other recreation than to exchange objects. When he travels he carries, so to speak, his goods and his counter on his back and talks only of interest and profit. If he loses sight of his own business for an instant it is only in order to pry into the business of his competitors."

"Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight."

"The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor."

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."

"This [mammonist] mindset is embodied and reaches its acme in international plutocracy. The chief source of power for Mammonism is the effortless and endless income that is produced through interest."

"This hypocrite, whose holy look and dress Seem Heaven-born, whose heart is nothing less: He preaches, prays, and sings for worldly wealth, Till old sly Mammon takes it all by stealth, And leaves him naked on a dreary shore, Where cant and nonsense draw in fools no more."

"Of course the avaricious man of our day, be he landlord, merchant, industrialist, does not adore sacks of coins or bundles of banknotes in some little chapel and upon some little altar. He does not kneel before these spoils of other men, nor does he address prayers or canticles to them amidst odorous clouds of incense. But he proclaims that money is the only good, and he yields it all his soul. A cult sincere, without hypocrisy, never growing weary, never forsworn. Whenever he says, in the debasement of his heart and his speech, that he loves money for the delights it can purchase, he lies or he terribly deceives himself, this very assertion being belied at the very moment he utters it by every one of his acts, by the infinite toil and pains to which he gladly condemns himself in order to acquire or conserve that money which is but the visible figure of the Blood of Christ circulating throughout all His members."

"Gold begets in brethren hate; Gold in families debate; Gold does friendship separate; Gold does civil wars create."

"I started working when I was 12. Sometimes I help pull out the bags, and sometimes I go underwater. It’s just like digging with a shovel, and putting it in a sand bag. [To breathe] I use the compressor... I bite the hose and release it whenever I need air, inhale, and exhale through my nose... At first, it was hard to think about going down… I don’t use goggles. I basically don’t use my eyes. I use my hands to look for the passage, the canal... Sometimes you have to make it up fast, especially if you have no air in your hose if the machine stops working. It’s a normal thing [for the compressor to stop working]. It's happened to me."

"Gold is mined in around 80 countries, with approximately 3,200 tons produced every year. The largest producers are China, Australia, Russia, and the US. Most gold comes from large, industrial mines, though 15 to 20 percent of the world's gold comes from small-scale or artisanal mines, primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Jewelry accounts for over 50 percent of the world's gold demand, an estimated 1,600 tons of gold for 2016...Gold from industrial mines may be exported directly to refiners, while artisanal gold may pass from one trader to another before being exported for refining. Gold refiners play a crucial role in the gold supply chain. Because the vast majority of the world’s gold passes through a small number of refiners, these companies are sometimes called the "choke point" of the gold supply chain.Once gold is refined, it is sold to banks, manufacturers, jewelry and watch companies, electronics companies, or other businesses. Jewelry companies may source their gold directly from refiners, or from manufacturers, banks, or international gold traders. China and India are the largest markets for gold jewelry, representing over 50 percent of global jewelry demand."

": Remember the Golden Rule. : What's that? : Whoever has the gold, makes the rules!"

"Every honest miller has a golden thumb."

"Gold is one of the things for the non-existence of which man would probably be all the better. It was originally called into existence for the service of the Mishkan and of the Temple."

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns—you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

"In England the functions of a standardising commodity and of a medium of exchange are both alike performed by gold. Gold is applied to a vast number of purposes in the arts and sciences, and were it more abundant it would replace other metals in many more. Consequently a great number of easily accessible persons actually give a relatively high place to gold on their scales of preference, in virtue of its direct significance to them. It is established by custom (and, so far as that is possible, by law) as the universally accepted commodity; and at the same time it is used as the common measure in terms of which our estimates of all exchangeable things may be stated."

"Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra fames?"

"But still less should the gold of rich men lazily sleep its heavy sleep in the urns and gloom of treasuries. This so weighty metal, when it becomes the associate of a fancy, assumes the most active virtues of the mind. It has her restless nature. Its essence is to vanish. It changes into all things, without being itself changed. It raises blocks of stone, pierces mountains, opens the gates of fortresses and the most secret hearts; it enchains men; it dresses, it undresses women with an almost miraculous promptitude. It is truly the most abstract agent that exists, next to thought. But thought exchanges and envelops images only, whereas gold incites and promotes the transmutations of all real things into one another; itself remaining incorruptible, and passing untainted through all hands."

""Gold," says the Consul, knowing that this is the only syllable that has held its power over the ages."

"Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold; Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. But in the temple of their hireling hearts Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue."

"Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows."

"How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object! For this the foolish over-careful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry: For this they have engrossed and pil'd up The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold; For this they have been thoughtful to invest Their sons with arts and martial exercises."

"L'or est une chimère."

"Imaro exploded. "Why do men fight like starving lions over yellow metal and let valuable cattle go?""

"What nature wants, commodious gold bestows; 'Tis thus we cut the bread another sows."

"Not Philip, but Philip's gold, took the cities of Greece."

"Aurea nunc vere sunt specula; plurimus auro Venit honos; auro conciliatur amor."

"Well, I have never had the slightest interest in owning gold. It's a much better life to work with businesses and people engaged in business. I can't imagine a worse crowd to deal with than a bunch of gold bugs."

"O you who believe! most surely many of the doctors of law and the monks eat away the property of men falsely, and turn (them) from Allah's way; and (as for) those who hoard up gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah's way, announce to them a painful chastisement, On the day when it shall be heated in the fire of hell, then their foreheads and their sides and their backs will be branded with it: This is what you hoarded up for yourselves, therefore taste what you hoarded."

"Money is gold, and nothing else."

"L'or donne aux plus laids certain charme pour plaire, Et quo sans lui le reste est une triste affaire."

"Bright El Dorado, land of gold, We have so sought for thee, There's not a spot in all the globe Where such a land can be."

"The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest; The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man."

"But scarce observ'd the Knowing and the Bold, Fall in the gen'ral Massacre of Gold; Wide-wasting Pest! that rages unconfin'd, And crouds with Crimes the Records of Mankind, For Gold his Sword the Hireling Ruffian draws, For Gold the hireling Judge distorts the laws; Wealth heap'd on Wealth, nor truth nor Safety buys, The Dangers gather as the Treasures rise."

"One of the biggest appeals of gold is its relative scarcity. Only around 216,265 tonnes of the metal have ever been mined, according to the World Gold Council trade association.That's enough to fill between three to four Olympic-sized swimming pools. The majority of that was only extracted from the earth since 1950, as mining technology advanced and new deposits were discovered."

"Aurum per medios ire satellites Et perrumpere amat saxa potentius Ictu fulmineo."

"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold."

"That is gold which is worth gold."

"What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?"

"Gold! I knew it! Just think of it, Queen. Six bags of gold!" trilled the King. "What will you do with them, King dear?" asked the Queen. "I won't do anything with them. I'll just have them and be rich."

"To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold, Not yet discoloured with the love of gold (That jaundice of the soul, Which makes it look so gilded and so foul)"

"And yet he hadde "a thombe of gold" pardee."

"For gold in phisik is a cordial; Therefore he lovede gold in special."

"A thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm The meanest hearts."

"When we took over Berkshire, gold was at twenty dollars and Berkshire was at fifteen — so, gold is now at sixteen hundred and Berkshire is at a hundred and twenty thousand. So, you can pick different starting periods. Obviously, if you pick anything that has gone up a lot ... in the last month or year, it will beat ninety ... or ninety-five percent of other investments. The one thing I would bet my life on, essentially, is over a fifty-year period not only will Berkshire do considerably better than gold, but common stocks as a group will do better than gold ... and, probably, farmland will do better than gold. ... If you own an ounce of gold now and ... you caress it over the next hundred years, you'll have an ounce of gold a hundred years from now. If you own a hundred acres of farmland, you'll also have a hundred acres of farmland a hundred years from now and you will have taken the crops for a hundred years and sold them — and, presumably, bought more farmland with the process. It's very hard for an unproductive investment to beat productive investments over any long period of time. ... I can say bonds are no good — and Ben Bernanke still smiles at me. ... If you say anything negative about gold, ... it arouses passions with people — which is kind of fascinating — because, usually, if you thought through something intellectually, it really shouldn't make much difference what people say."