Quotes about wealth (1501 quotes, page 14)

“Wealth itself is blameless, but there can be fear for its precious eye; for I consider the presence of a house's master to be its saving light.”

Aeschylus The Persians

Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 168–169 (tr. Christopher Collard)

Fear , Light , Housing

“Obviously it can be a mistake to assign brilliance in proportion to wealth.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 209
Context: Obviously it can be a mistake to assign brilliance in proportion to wealth. We cannot see a persons potential, only his or her results, so we often misjudge people by thinking that the results must reflect the person. The normal accident theory of life shows not that the connection between actions and rewards is random but that random influences are as important as our qualities and actions.

“It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

“I wonder if she wouldn't choose his miserable common sense rather than her wealth?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1846
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
Context: If I were to imagine a girl deeply in love and some man who wanted to use all his reasoning powers and knowledge to ridicule her passion, well, there's surely no question of the enamoured girl having to choose between keeping her wealth and being ridiculed. No, but if some extremely cool and calculating man calmly told the young girl, "I will explain to you what love is," and the girl admitted that everything he told her was quite correct, I wonder if she wouldn't choose his miserable common sense rather than her wealth?

Sense

“The wealth of the universe is all over your head. We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Space.com interview (2000)

Universe

“Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Anything That's Peaceful (1964)
Context: Socialism depends upon and presupposes material achievements which socialism itself can never create. Socialism is operative only in wealth situations brought about by motes of production other than its own. Socialism takes and redistributes wealth, but it is utterly incapable of creating wealth.

“To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?”

William Stanley Jevons book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)
Context: Commerce is but a means to an end, the diffusion of civilization and wealth. To allow commerce to proceed until the source of civilization is weakened and overturned is like killing the goose to get the golden egg. Is the immediate creation of material wealth to be our only object?

“Well, I haven't got wealth or fame, but I really think I might say, and I know how dangerous it is to say this — I think I have happiness.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"Robertson Davies" [by Paul Soles]
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
Context: Well, I haven't got wealth or fame, but I really think I might say, and I know how dangerous it is to say this — I think I have happiness. And happiness, you know, so many people when they talk about happiness, seem to think that it is a constant state of near lunacy, that you're always hopping about like a fairy in a cartoon strip, and being noisily and obstreperously happy. I don't think that is it at all. Happiness is a certain degree of calm, a certain degree of having your feet rooted firmly in the ground, of being aware that however miserable things are at the moment that they're probably not going to be so bad after awhile, or possibly they may be going very well now, but you must keep your head because they're not going to be so good later. Happiness is a very deep and dispersed state. It's not a kind of excitement.

Thinking , Happiness

“Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Message to Congress on Tax Revision (1935)
Context: The desire to provide security for oneself and one's family is natural and wholesome, but it is adequately served by a reasonable inheritance. Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security. In the last analysis such accumulations amount to the perpetuation of great and undesirable concentration of control in a relatively few individuals over the employment and welfare of many, many others.

Family , Personality

“The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)
Context: The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these". Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.

War , World , School , Time

“I live a wonderful life, and I lack for nothing. Maybe that does make it easier for me to say, "Be who you are" — but I always tell people they shouldn't be too impressed with wealth and fame. They shouldn't worship it. I am in this machine, but I haven't completely given my soul to it.”

Salma Hayek (1966) Mexican-American actress and producer

O interview (2003)
Context: Yes, I'm beautiful … I am beautiful and famous — and yet the things I like about myself have nothing to do with that, because I don't use wealth and beauty to define myself. People think I'm more beautiful than I am because they see me on magazine covers — but go to nearly any town, and you'd find prettier women. And though I'm well known now, I might not be famous one day —but I'd still be happy. I do have money, but I could be richer. I just don't want to pay the price some are willing to pay to have more money. I live in a small house. I'm not the glamour girl who wears makeup every day. I live a wonderful life, and I lack for nothing. Maybe that does make it easier for me to say, "Be who you are" — but I always tell people they shouldn't be too impressed with wealth and fame. They shouldn't worship it. I am in this machine, but I haven't completely given my soul to it.

Life , People , Soul

“The elaborate financial interdependence of the modern world has grown up in spite of ourselves. Men are fundamentally just as disposed as they were at any time to take wealth that does not belong to them. But their relative interest in the matter has changed.
In very primitive conditions robbery is a moderately profitable enterprise. Where the rewards of labor are small and uncertain, and where all wealth is portable, the size of a man’s wealth depends a good deal on the size of his club and the agility with which he wields it. But to the man whose wealth so largely depends upon his credit, dishonesty has become as precarious and profitless as honest toil was in more primitive times.”

Norman Angell book The Great Illusion

The Great Illusion (1910)
Context: The elaborate financial interdependence of the modern world has grown up in spite of ourselves. Men are fundamentally just as disposed as they were at any time to take wealth that does not belong to them. But their relative interest in the matter has changed.
In very primitive conditions robbery is a moderately profitable enterprise. Where the rewards of labor are small and uncertain, and where all wealth is portable, the size of a man’s wealth depends a good deal on the size of his club and the agility with which he wields it. But to the man whose wealth so largely depends upon his credit, dishonesty has become as precarious and profitless as honest toil was in more primitive times. The instincts of the City man may at bottom be just as predatory as those of the robber baron, but taking property by force has been rendered impossible by the force of commercial events.

Men , World , Change , Time

“Whether it be "molecule," "fact," "law," "art," "wealth," "gene," or whatever, it is essential that students understand that definitions are hypotheses, and that embedded in them is a particular philosophical, sociological, or epistemological point of view.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: Definitions, like questions and metaphors, are instruments for thinking. Their authority rests entirely on their usefulness, not their correctness. We use definitions in order to delineate problems we wish to investigate, or to further interests we wish to promote. In other words, we invent definitions and discard them as suits our purposes. And yet, one gets the impression that... God has provided us with definitions from which we depart at the risk of losing our immortal souls. This is the belief that I have elsewhere called "definition tyranny," which may be defined... as the process of accepting without criticism someone else's definition of a word or a problem or a situation. I can think of no better method of freeing students from this obstruction of the mind than to provide them with alternative definitions of every concept and term with which they must deal in a subject. Whether it be "molecule," "fact," "law," "art," "wealth," "gene," or whatever, it is essential that students understand that definitions are hypotheses, and that embedded in them is a particular philosophical, sociological, or epistemological point of view.

Law , Art , Understanding

“Unheard-of wealth, unheard-of love is near,
If thou hast heart a little dread to bear.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Context: Then listen! when this day is overpast,
A fearful monster shall I be again,
And thou mayst be my saviour at the last,
Unless, once more, thy words are nought and vain.
If thou of love and sovereignty art fain,
Come thou next morn, and when thou seest here
A hideous dragon, have thereof no fear,
But take the loathsome head up in thine hands
And kiss it, and be master presently
Of twice the wealth that is in all the lands
From Cathay to the head of Italy;
And master also, if it pleaseth thee,
Of all thou praisest as so fresh and bright,
Of what thou callest crown of all delight.
Ah! with what joy then shall I see again
The sunlight on the green grass and the trees,
And hear the clatter of the summer rain,
And see the joyous folk beyond the seas.
Ah, me! to hold my child upon my knees
After the weeping of unkindly tears
And all the wrongs of these four hundred years.
Go now, go quick! leave this grey heap of stone;
And from thy glad heart think upon thy way,
How I shall love thee — yea, love thee alone,
That bringest me from dark death unto day;
For this shall be thy wages and thy pay;
Unheard-of wealth, unheard-of love is near,
If thou hast heart a little dread to bear.

Love , Heart

“He taught us by example to place little emphasis on personal material gain…his aim was to bequeath to posterity the riches of his brain and the wealth of his soul.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

The Manila Tribune. April 19, 1928.
BALIW

Soul , Personality

“When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Protection or Free Trade? (1886), Ch. 2
Context: When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom. That those who advocate any extension of freedom choose to go no further than suits their own special purpose is no reason why freedom itself should be distrusted.

Freedom , Dependency

“I am saying that green technology could do all these good things, bringing wealth to the tropics, bringing economic opportunity to the villages, narrowing the gap between rich and poor. I am not saying that green technology will do all these good things. "Could" is not the same as "will". To make these good things happen, we need not only the new technology but the political and economic conditions that will give people all over the world a chance to use it. To make these things happen, we need a powerful push from ethics.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: Our grey technology of machines and computers will not disappear, but green technology will be moving ahead even faster. Green technology can be cleaner, more flexible and less wasteful, than our existing chemical industries. A great variety of manufactured objects could be grown instead of made. Green technology could supply human needs with far less damage to the natural environment. And green technology could be a great equalizer, bringing wealth to the tropical areas of the world which have most of the sunshine, most of the human population, and most of the poverty. I am saying that green technology could do all these good things, bringing wealth to the tropics, bringing economic opportunity to the villages, narrowing the gap between rich and poor. I am not saying that green technology will do all these good things. "Could" is not the same as "will". To make these good things happen, we need not only the new technology but the political and economic conditions that will give people all over the world a chance to use it. To make these things happen, we need a powerful push from ethics. We need a consensus of public opinion around the world that the existing gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth are intolerable. In reaching such a consensus, religions must play an essential role. Neither technology alone nor religion alone is powerful enough to bring social justice to human societies, but technology and religion working together might do the job.

People , World , Chance

“If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

IX. On Providence, Fate, and Fortune.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

“Ability is a poor man's wealth. ”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

“Не does not possess wealth that allows it to possess him.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

“Ambition is the wealth of the poor.”

Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France

“People wealth consists upon their freedom, individual resources and good social life.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9672844-people-wealth-consists-upon-their-freedom-individual-resources-and-good

Life , People , Freedom

“Eat to live, health is wealth.”

Ralph Smart

Health

“If you are not grateful for anything, you will always be poor, because gratitude has everything to do with wealth.”

Ralph Smart

Gratitude

“There is no greater form of wealth than your peace of mind.”

Ralph Smart

Peace

“Fascism does not look upon the doctrine of economic liberty as an absolute dogma. It does not refer economic problems to individual needs, to individual interest, to individual solutions. On the contrary, it considers the economic development, and especially the production of wealth, as an eminently social concern, wealth being for society an essential element of power and prosperity.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 113

Problem

“An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the State to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue, which would make it wise in a Nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a Magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President of the United States.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 75
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

World , Making love , History

“Approximately, three billion people of the world live on less than 2.5 dollars a day, and over a billion people live without having even one sufficient meal on a daily basis. Forty-percent of the poorest world populations only share five percent of the global income, while twenty percent of the richest people share seventy-five percent of the total global income. More than twenty thousand innocent and destitute children die every day in the world because of poverty. What is the justification for the presence of hundreds of US military and intelligence bases in different parts of the world...? An assembly of people in contradiction with the inner human instincts and disposition who also have no faith in God and in the path of the divine prophets, replace their lust for power and materialistic ends with heavenly values. To them, only power and wealth prevail, and every attempt must bring into focus these sinister goals...”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Ahmadinejad United Nations Speech: Full Text Transcript, https://www.ibtimes.com/ahmadinejad-united-nations-speech-full-text-transcript-317114 International Business Times, 22 Oct 2011
2011

God , Faith , Intelligence , Children

“As the imperialist countries attained a high degree of wealth and affluence— the result both of scientific and technical progress and of their plunder of the nations of Asia and Africa— these individuals lost all self-confidence and imagined that the only way to achieve technical progress was to abandon their own laws and beliefs. When the moon landings took place, for instance, they concluded that Muslims should jettison their laws! But what is the connection between going to the moon and the laws of Islam? Do they not see that countries having opposing laws and social systems compete with each other in technical and scientific progress and the conquest of space? Let them go all the way to Mars or beyond the Milky Way; they will still be deprived of true happiness, moral virtue, and spiritual advancement and be unable to solve their own social problems. For the solution of social problems and the relief of human misery require foundations in faith and morals; merely acquiring material power and wealth, conquering nature and space, have no effect in this regard. They must be supplemented by, and balanced with, the faith, the conviction, and the morality of Islam in order truly to serve humanity instead of endangering it. This conviction, this morality, these laws that are needed, we already possess. So as soon as someone goes somewhere or invents something, we should not hurry to abandon our religion and its laws, which regulate the life of man and provide for his well-being in this world and the hereafter.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Translated and Annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Berkley, pp 36.
Islam and civilization

Faith , Religion , Confidence , Law

“Their plan is to keep us backward, to keep us in our present miserable state so they can exploit our riches, our underground wealth, our lands, and our human resources. They want us to remain afflicted and wretched, and our poor to be trapped in their misery. Instead of surrendering to the injunctions of Islam, which provide a solution for the problem of poverty, they and their agents wish to go on living in huge palaces and enjoying lives of abominable luxury.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Translated and Annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Berkley, p. 33.
Islam and the imperialists

Problem , Affliction

“Though in Bengal and Orissa, some say, Alakshmi is visualized as an owl seated beside Lakshmi, Alakshmi is a secret goddess, invisible to all. The only way to see her is to have Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and good sense by your side. But Lakshmi will never let Saraswati stay in the same house as her. She will go wherever there is Saraswati and kick her out, making room for Alakshmi. Why does she do that, one wonders. But then one is told that Lakshmi is a whimsical goddess, she does not like to stay in one place too long. By kicking Saraswati out and by getting Alakshmi in, she ensures there is a fight in the house and when there is a fight, wealth invariably moves out of a house.”

Devdutt Pattanaik (1970) Indian physician; leadership consultant, mythologist and author

Devdutt Pattanaik in: The Rise of Alakshmi http://devdutt.com/articles/modern-mythmaking/the-rise-of-alakshmi.html, Speaking Tree, The Times of India, 2 May 2010, Retrieved 7 September 2017

Housing , Fight , Knowledge , Secret

“Wealth in India, as in every other ancient culture, was limited to the few. Mystical activities were also the preoccupation of but a handful of people. It is true, however, that acceptance of such activities was characteristic of the majority… whereas in some other cultures the rope-trick would have been ascribed to the promptings of the devil and reference to it suppressed, in India it was regarded with amused benevolence. The fundamental sanity of Indian civilization has been due to an absence of Satan.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

Romila Thapar, ‘A history of India 1. Pelican. (also quoted in https://aboutfilm.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/romila-thapar-%E2%80%93-a-history-of-india-and-the-absence-of-satan/ https://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2012/04/romila-thapar-on-hinduism.html)

People

“There are great economic opportunities ahead of us. If we are sensible, we can have rising production and rising standards of living without constantly rising prices. Why should we not aim to double our standard of living in the next 20 years, and still have our money as valuable then as now? The faster we modernize and expand our productive capacity, the more we shall be able to increase the national wealth.”

Rab Butler (1902–1982) British politician

Speech to the quarterly meeting of the National Production Advisory Council on Industry (28 May 1954), quoted in The Times (29 May 1954), p. 3
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Money

“We can write a life of Julius Caesar or of Cicero, because we have in the first line letters, commentaries, and other authentic documents written by them and their friends; in the second, lives written by Plutarch and others who had in their hands monuments of them, now lost; and in the third, masses of contemporary coins and inscriptions. Contrast with this wealth of sources the scanty material which remains, after the examination of the preceding chapters, for a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth. So slender is it, indeed, that it seems not absurd to some critics to-day to deny that he ever lived.”

Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare (1856–1924) British orientalist

p. 139 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005727337;view=1up;seq=163
Myth, Magic, and Morals (1909)

Life

“I remember sometimes growing up I would feel ashamed of my mom or my dad if they came to pick us up at school, because they never looked like all the other mothers and fathers; they were always dirty because they had been out in the fields, drove in to pick us up at 3:00 so we could go to work…So I remember when I heard Chávez speak, when I saw him on television, I remember thinking that my mom and dad had actually contributed to the wealth of this country and I shouldn’t feel embarrassed by them or feel bad for them.”

Malaquías Montoya (1938) American artist

On how his viewpoint of his parents changed after the advent of César Chávez (as quoted in “’What better function for art at this time than as a voice for the voiceless’: The Work of Chicano Artist Malaquías Montoya” https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/17/%E2%80%9Cwhat-better-function-art-time-voice-voiceless%E2%80%9D-work-chicano-artist-malaqu%C3%ADas; 2019 Feb 15)

School , Country , Bad luck , Thinking

“Should the CIA stooge Guaido and his white supremacists grab power, it will be the 68th overthrow of a sovereign government by the United States, most of them democracies. A fire sale of Venezuela’s utilities and mineral wealth will surely follow, along with the theft of the country’s oil, as outlined by John Bolton. Under the last Washington-controlled government in Caracas, poverty reached historic proportions. There was no healthcare for those could not pay. There was no universal education; Mavis Mendez, and millions like her, could not read or write.”

John Pilger (1939) Australian journalist

John Pilger, The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies, CounterPunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/22/the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies/ (22 February 2019)

Democracy , Reading , Country , Universe

“Those who have found this middle point are true and wonderworking adepts of science and reason. They are masters of the wealth of worlds, confidants and friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature obeys them because they will what is willed by the law which is the motive power of Nature. It is this which the Saviour of the world spoke of as the Kingdom of Heaven; this also is the Sanctum Regnum of the Holy Kabalah. It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon ; it is the Sceptre of Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the harvests on earth.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: The History Of Magic (1860), p.501

Confidence , Law , Star , Nature

“This Delta, he thought: This Delta. This land which man has deswamped and denuded and derivered in two generations so that white men can own plantations and commute every night to Memphis and black men own plantations and ride in jim crow cars to Chicago to live in millionaires’ mansions on Lakeshore Drive, where white men rent farms and live like niggers and niggers crop on shares and live like animals, where cotton is planted and grows man-tall in the very cracks of the sidewalks, and usury and mortgage and bankruptcy and measureless wealth, Chinese and African and Aryan and Jew, all breed and spawn together until no man has time to say which is which nor cares…. No wonder the ruined woods I used to know don’t cry for retribution! he thought: The people who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge.”

William Faulkner book Go Down, Moses

Delta Autumn (p. 347)
Go Down, Moses (1942)

Time , Night , People , Revenge

“Under the old North Amerikan slave system it was openly admitted that people simply will not willingly submit to bondage and unremunerated forced labor. The human spirit naturally rebels against such a condition. Therefore the wealthy interests whose economic domination, power, prestige and wealth itself relied on slave labor, had to devise a system which would compel the submission of those to be kept in bondage.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

"Razor Wire Plantations" (2014)

People , Nature

“I offer this gift to my God, I dedicate this gift to Him. Only this remains to me as my treasure. I gave up everything else at the command of the Spirit. I gave all that I had to obtain the pearl of great price. Only in words do I master it, as a servant of the Word. I would never intentionally wish to disdain this wealth. I esteem it, I set value by it, I am comforted by it more than others are comforted by all the treasures of the world. It is the companion of all my life, a good counselor and converser; a guide on the way to Heaven and a fervent co-ascetic.”

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389) Christian saint, bishop, and theologian

Concerning his literary gift
Source: "St. Gregory the Theologian the Archbishop of Constantinople" https://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/01/25/100298-st-gregory-the-theologian-the-archbishop-of-constantinople

God , Way , World , Life

“As I have already mentioned in the introduction to this volume, this handbook is not destined to be the steppingstone in the search after wealth and honor, but it has to serve the purpose of studying Man the microcosm in relation to the macrocosmic Universe together with their laws... He who stands upon the purely materialistic position, an unbeliever in religious matters, ignoring supernatural phenomena and only concerned in material interests, undoubtedly will regard this book as sheer nonsense, and I am not purposed to convert such people to any faith or to change their ideas. This work has exclusively been written for those who seek...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 169.

Faith , Study , Law , Search

“Trump would have us believe that these are our only two choices: We can either have smash-and-grab capitalism, where so many hands in the cookie jar has resulted in so many government scandals, and where the top 1 percent have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, or we can have what’s happening in Venezuela, where the economy has collapsed and humanitarian and political crises have ensued...”

Krystal Ball (1981) American journalist

“Owning your own racing ship wasn’t even wealth. It was like speciation. It was conspicuous consumption befitting ancient Earth royalty, a pharaoh’s pyramid with a reaction drive.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 30 (p. 330)

Relation ships

“When Bobbie tried to imagine being so wealthy you could own a spaceship just to compete in races, she failed. That the same girl had run away to be an OPA rebel probably said a lot about the relationship of wealth and contentment, but Bobbie had a hard time being that philosophical.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 30 (pp. 329-330)

Girl , Imagination , Time

“Those who fancy that collectedness results from the collecting of wordly goods remain in perpetual distraction, whilst those who are convinced that amassing wealth is the cause of distraction renounce all wordly goods.”

Jami (1414–1492) Persian poet

Lawāih, p. 20
Lawāih

“Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

I, 1
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book I

Anger , Learning , Flying , Passion

“Piketty ends Capital in the Twenty-First Century with a call to arms — a call, in particular, for wealth taxes, global if possible, to restrain the growing power of inherited wealth. It’s easy to be cynical about the prospects for anything of the kind. But surely Piketty’s masterly diagnosis of where we are and where we’re heading makes such a thing considerably more likely. So Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extremely important book on all fronts. Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Why We’re in a New Gilded Age", The New York Review of Books (May 8, 2014)
The New York Review of Books articles

Way , Books , Making love

“With great wealth comes great pettiness.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Warren Versus the Petty Plutocrats https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax.html (September 30, 2019)
The New York Times Columns

“O almighty Lord! I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor I have any desire to enjoy beautiful women; neither do I want any number of followers of Mine. What I want only is that I may have Your causeless devotional service in my life – birth after birth.”

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) Indian saint

Teachings of Lord Chaitanya - Prabhupada, (1968)

Beauty , Life , Birth , Women

“The king seizes the Brahmanas, pollutes their caste and even takes their lives. If a conch-shell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put scared marks on the forehead, and then binds them. He breaks the temples and uproots tulsi plants… The bathing in Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of scared asvattha and jack trees have been cut down.”

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) Indian saint

Jayananda: Chaitanya-mañgala, (a biography of the great Vaishnava saint), about the Navadvipa region on the eve of the saint’s birth in 1484 AD. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India.

Life , Tree , Housing

“Our philosophy is to use what is good from the past to create a future which is better. But these pages are not an introduction to an easy, sheltered life. No country has an inherited right to wealth or influence. Prosperity has to be worked for. The future will be assured only if our people recognize the simple economic rules which must be kept by a country dependent on earning its living in a competitive world. This manifesto points the way.”

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Preface to the Conservative Party manifesto Prosperity with a Purpose (17 September 1964), quoted in The Times (18 September 1964), p. 16
Prime Minister

Dependency , Country , Past , Future

“Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves… his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.”

Evo Morales (1959) Bolivian politician

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton https://consortiumnews.com/tag/ben-norton/ in Bolivia Coup Led by Christian Fascist Paramilitary Leader, a Multi-Millionaire – with Foreign Support https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/bolivia-coup-led-by-christian-fascist-paramilitary-leader-a-multi-millionaire-with-foreign-support/, Consortium News, (12 November 2019)
About

Family , Parting , Nature

“Why do we need wealth? Security and peace. This is our goal and we passionately seek it because it is the way of life which we are charged by our religion to practise.”

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Guildhall (11 November 1963), quoted in The Times (12 November 1963), p. 12
Prime Minister

Peace , Religion , Passion , Way

“Suppose rather than passing the plate in church, they get a radio show and pass the plate and half a million listeners donate. Isn’t that going to convince a preacher that it’s all true? Wealth comes to the faithful, that’s the message they’re going to take. An’ I never yet met a con man who wasn’t the better at the job for believing his own spiel.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

“That’s not…untrue. But money corrupts. Almost invariably, powers that arise around money are corrupted by it. He might have started out as a true believer, but money has a way of taking over. A church is a business, after all, and those employees or executives who are good at raising money are promoted by their fellows.”
Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 7, “Communion” (p. 126)

Faith

“The retreat has come to an end; it is now a matter of regrouping our forces. These are the instructions that the Congress must pass so as to put an end to fuss and bustle. Calm down, do not philosophize; if you do, it will be counted as a black mark against you. Show by your practical efforts that you can work no less efficiently than the capitalists. The capitalists create an economic link with the peasants in order to amass wealth; you must create a link with peasant economy in order to strengthen the economic power of our proletarian state. You have the advantage over the capitalists in that political power is i n your hands; you have a number of economic weapons at your command; the only trouble is that you cannot make proper use of them.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

Making love , Effort

“Our bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax on the wealthiest families in this country and dramatically reducing wealth inequality. From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Tax the Rich That’s About As Radical as What Teddy Roosevelt Proposed, by John Nichols, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-progressive-estate-tax-teddy-roosevelt/ (12 February 2019)
2010s, 2019, February 2019

Family , People , Country

“At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent…”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Tax the Rich That’s About As Radical as What Teddy Roosevelt Proposed, by John Nichols, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-progressive-estate-tax-teddy-roosevelt/ (12 February 2019)
2010s, 2019, February 2019

Time

“There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working class of this country to the top 1 percent. And at the end of the day, John—and the media doesn’t talk about it, the corporate media does not talk about it—nobody can defend three families in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. Or that 49 percent of all new income today goes to the top 1 percent. That is indefensible. That is outrageous. That is immoral. And I think the American people understand that has got to change…”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders: ‘We Have to Talk About Democratic Socialism as an Alternative to Unfettered Capitalism, The Nation, John Nichols https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-socialism-capitalism-2020/ (12 June 2019)
2010s, 2019, June 2019

Family , Understanding , Country , People

“I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough… not in the media and not in Congress. You’ve got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country. You’ve got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media. Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an economy that works for all of us, not 1%. That’s my understanding of democratic socialism.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders on Democratic Socialism: We Want to Create an Economy That Works for All of Us https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/13/bernie_sanders_democratic_socialism_defense_democratic DemocracyNow (13 September 2019)
2010s, 2019, September 2019

People , Understanding , Country

“There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the whole world that was fighting for capitalism. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Assata: In Her Own Words

World , Fight , People

“Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), p. 14.

“The landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the wealth of the capitalist comes from the same source.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 4 : Expropriation

“The principle of mutual inter-imperialist assistance whereby American, British, French and West German monopoly capital extends joint control over the wealth of the non-liberated zones of Africa, Latin America and Asia, finds concrete expression in the formation of interlocked international financial institutions and bodies of credit.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

Source: Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (1968), p. 7

“If we cannot make voluntary and conscious steps in the admirable science of universals, let us see the parts wisely, and infer the genius of nature from the best particulars with a becoming charity. What is best in each kind is an index of what should be the average of that thing. Love shows me the opulence of nature, by disclosing to me in my friend a hidden wealth, and I infer an equal depth of good in every other direction. It is commonly said by farmers that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear than a poor one; so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Science , Pain , Time , Nature

“The chief danger for a country placed as we are is that of living sullenly in the past, of believing that the world has a duty to keep us in the station to which we are accustomed, and showing bitter resentment if it does not do so. This was the mood of Suez; and it is a mood absolutely guaranteed, not to recreate our past glories, but to reduce us to a level of influence and wealth far lower than that which we need occupy. … Our neighbours in Europe are roughly our economic and military equals. We would do better to live gracefully with them than to waste our substance by trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the power giants of the modern world.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 11
1950s

Country , Past , World , Mood

“It is quite impossible to advocate both the abolition of great inequalities of wealth and the acceptance of a one-quarter public sector and three-quarters private sector arrangement. A mixed economy there will undoubtedly be, certainly for many decades and perhaps permanently, but it will need to be mixed in very different proportions from this.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Pursuit of Progress (Heinemann, 1953), p. 96
1950s

“The basic confrontation which seemed to be colonialism versus anti-colonialism, indeed capitalism versus socialism, is already losing its importance. What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Question

“This shows that those who attack us are not concerned with the indigenous human being, but with the mineral wealth and biodiversity in these areas. The United Nations has played a key role in overcoming colonialism and cannot accept this mentality to return to these halls and corridors under any pretext.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Speech at the at the 74th UN General Assembly. Statement by Mr. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/BR_EN.pdf. United Nations PaperSmart (24 September 2019).

“Interpretation of previously untranslated documents in the Indian national archives offers a wealth of new perspectives on the Uprising and its aftermath. Inevitably, such an account of the conflict between Evangelical Christianity and Muslims brings to mind contemporary conflicts, and helps us to understand them.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

Jules Smith, in "William Dalrymple: Critical Perspective".
About William Dalrymple

Help , Understanding

“We have now reached a point in the twenty-first century in which the externalities of this irrational system, such as the costs of war, the depletion of natural resources, the waste of human lives, and the disruption of the planetary environment, now far exceed any future economic benefits that capitalism offers to society as a whole. The accumulation of capital and the amassing of wealth are increasingly occurring at the expense of an irrevocable rift in the social and environmental conditions governing human life on earth.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Capitalism Has Failed—What Next?, 2019

War , Future , Nature , Life

“The man is a relic, gentlemen, from an age most of us have only read about. He would have us judged by our wealth and our martial glory rather than our goodwill and tranquility of spirit.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “Peculiar Geography of an Unknown Realm” (p. 167)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)

Age , Reading

“Here information and philosophies were exchanged, together with all manner of goods. This was a court whose energies were not devoted to maintaining itself unchanged for eternity, but to every kind of new idea and lively, humane discussion, which welcomed fresh thought not as a threat to its existence but as a very necessity to its continued well-being, whose wealth was devoted to experiment in the arts and sciences, to supporting those who were needy, to aiding thinkers and scholars. The Bright Empire’s brightness would come no longer from the glow of putrefaction but from the light of reason and good will.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “On the Red Road” (p. 160)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Light , Support , Art , Idea

“We are living although the majority of the people do not realize it, in the midst of an immense revolution. What is radically wrong with our condition lies in the harsh contrast between rich and poor. This cannot go on forever, as we are human beings with human differences. No use is being made of religion, the only way towards alleviation and compensation; on the contrary, attempts are being deliberately made to excite the masses into asserting their equality with the middle and upper classes. The State contents itself with attempts to improve the material circumstances of the workers, with the only result that their covetousness has been intensified. The possibility of acquiring great sums of money by speculation has developed a fondness for luxury and enjoyment which has taken hold of wide circles. German family life is going to the dogs. Unfortunate marriages, divorces, youthful corruption, pleasure-seeking, the anxiety to seem richer than one is–all this is increasing terribly. In the lower classes of the great cities the demoralization has already reached a high degree … The unequal distribution of wealth with all its consequences must lead in the end to a catastrophe.”

Alfred von Waldersee (1832–1904) Prussian Field Marshal

Waldersee in his diary, 9 November 1890

Money , Family , Religion , Marriage

“The mythology built around the Civil War—that victory by the North eradicated slavery and all of its vestiges throughout our nation—has obscured our discussions of the impact of chattel slavery and made it difficult to have a national dialogue on how to fully account for its place in American history and public policy. While it is nearly impossible to determine how the lives touched by slavery could have flourished in the absence of bondage, we have certain datum that permits us to examine how a subset of Americans – African Americans – have been affected by the callousness of involuntary servitude. We know that in almost every segment of society – education, healthcare, jobs and wealth – the inequities that persist in America are more acutely and disproportionately felt in Black America.”

Sheila Jackson Lee (1950) American politician

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Statement on the Historic Hearing on H.R. 40 - a Bill to Establish a Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans (19 June 2019)

History , War , Victory , Education

“At the one end of the scale are the Communist countries: at the other end the United States of America stands for individual liberty in the political sphere and for the maintenance of human rights. But its economy is based on capitalism, with all the problems which it presents, and with the characteristic extreme inequality of wealth in its citizens. … Great Britain, like the other countries of western Europe, is placed geographically and from the point of view of economic and political theory between these two great continental States. … Our task is to work out a system of a new and challenging kind, which combines individual freedom with a planned economy, democracy with social justice.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (3 January 1948), quoted in The Times (5 January 1948), p. 4
Prime Minister

Democracy , Justice , Country , Freedom

“As a nation we have two tasks; the one is to provide goods and services for our home needs, the other is to pay for the food and raw materials which we must get from abroad. Before the war we were rich; we owned money and railways and so forth abroad. The income from these helped to pay for our imports; but we sold these in order to help to win the war. We have therefore borrowed large sums from Canada and the United States to tide us over while we build up again, but when this money runs out we must pay for what we want from our own resources. To do this we must devote a far larger part than ever before of the wealth we produce to pay for imports.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (18 March 1947), quoted in The Times (19 March 1947), p. 4
Prime Minister

Money , Home , Food , War

“Those could be the famous last words of a one-term president, having wildly underestimated the public appetite for transformative action on the triple crises of our time: imminent ecological unraveling, gaping economic inequality (including the racial and gender wealth divide), and surging white supremacy.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Battle Lines Have Been Drawn on the Green New Deal, The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2019/02/13/green-new-deal-proposal/ (13 February 2019)

Time

“Neglect not your time, nor use it haphazardly; on the contrary, you should bring yourself to account. Structure your litanies and other practices during each day and night. This is how to bring about spiritual blessing in each period. If each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, be not like the deceived fools who are joyous because of each day their wealth increases while their life grows ever shorter.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Time , Night , Fools , Life

“So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled. Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

Health , Country

“If the population allows it to proceed, it’s just going to go on and on like this. Until the next crash — which is so much expected that credit agencies, which evaluate the status of firms, are now counting into their calculations the taxpayer bailout that they expect to come after the next crash… Everywhere you look, policies are designed this way, which should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. That’s what happens when you put power into the hands of a narrow sector of wealth, which is dedicated to increasing power for itself — just as you’d expect.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quoted by Bill Moyers in In His New Book, Noam Chomsky Takes a Look at Income Inequality, https://billmoyers.com/story/noam-chomskys-requiem-american-dream/ (11 May 2017)
Quotes 2010s, 2017, Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power ,

Way

“A pearl fishery is being established on the Malabar coast. Expert pearl divers are coming to Mysore from foreign lands. They will be with us for a short while until our own people can be trained. Believe me, there is glitter and romance in those pearls—and there is wealth and profit in them. Government is prepared to subsidise your training the youth in this field of work. You will also be assisted in case you suffer any financial losses in the pioneering years. Can I count on your cooperation?”

Tipu Sultan (1750–1799) Ruler of the Sultanate of Mysore

Tipu Sultan's address on 1788, Quoted in The Sword of Tipu Sultan, by Bhagwan S Gidwani https://books.google.com.sa/books?id=EimPBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PT262#v=onepage&q&f=true
From Tipu Sultan's Decrees

Loss , Suffering , People , Youth

“We Conservatives have always passed our values from generation to generation. I believe that personal prosperity should follow the same course. I want to see wealth cascading down the generations. We do not see each generation starting out anew, with the past cut off and the future ignored.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: First speech as leader at the Conservative Party conference (1991) http://www.johnmajor.co.uk/page863.html

Personality

“It has become ever clearer that underdevelopment is the end result of a process. Therefore, it must be studied from a historical perspective, that is, in relationship to the development and expansion of the great capitalist countries. The underdevelopment of the poor countries, as an overall social fact, appears in its true light: as the historical by-product of the development of other countries. The dynamics of the capitalist economy lead to the establishment of a center and a periphery, simultaneously generating progress and growing wealth for the few and social imbalances, political tensions, and poverty for the many.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation (1971), p. 54

Study , Country , Light , Appearance

“I think all of the things that Bernie Sanders… listed about paying attention to distressed communities should be done. And we should also have reparations. So, I don’t see those two things as in conflict. It’s not clear to me why both can’t be on the agenda. In fact, it was never clear to me why both can’t be on the agenda, why one can’t associate themselves with the massive gaps in the wealth, that don’t just exist in the African-American community, but exist in communities across the country, and at the same time recognize that there’s something specific about the gap in the African-American community that’s tied to the specificity of American history. But, you know, as I said, I’m happy Senator Sanders now supports H. R. 40.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Joe Biden Shouldn’t Be President, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Time , History , Country , Support

“The onset of the Civil War, the greatest preponderance, the greatest population per capita of millionaires and multimillionaires in this country was in the Mississippi River Valley. It wasn’t in Boston, wasn’t in Chicago, wasn’t in New York. The richest people in this country were slaveholders. Most of our earliest presidents were slaveholders. And the fact that they were presidents is not incidental to the fact that they—to their slaveholding. That was how they built their wealth. That was how Thomas Jefferson built his wealth. That was how George Washington built his wealth. Individual slaves were the equivalent of, say, owning a home today. They were people, but turned into objects of extreme wealth. So, just from the economic perspective, there’s that.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Reparations Are Not Just About Slavery But Also Centuries of Theft & Racial Terror, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)

Home , Country , War , People

“A state of thievocracy is promoted because it permits politically connected taskmasters to redirect wealth to those deemed worthier by the state. In this sense, slavery is the socialization of labor and property, imposed to make the populace subservient to an institutionalized authority that often preaches equalitarianism and altruism but practices a slavery-enriched militarism. To the far statist Left and their slavocracy comrades, individuals have no ownership rights—so humans can be beasts of burden or simply be exterminated in cleansing bouts of genocide. Many leaders of the Democratic Party are still tied to this slavocracy-socialist tradition as a means to steal wages and assets from the citizenry as well as corrode free speech, due process and the presumption of innocence.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

p 484
Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019)

Sense , Making love

“Prior to World War II, most socialists and socialist parties of Europe held strong anti-Semitic opinions and railed against the capitalistic middle class and wealthy, especially money-lending Jews who engaged in usury. Their schemes called for wealth-confiscation and redistribution to create a truly equal society.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 369

Money , War , Strong , World

“I leave undecided the question whether complete mutual freedom of international commerce, such as is contemplated by the theory of Free Trade, would not serve the interests of Germany. But as long as most of the countries with which our trade is carried on surround themselves with customs barriers…it does not seem to me justifiable, or to the economic interest of the nation, that we should allow ourselves to be restricted in the satisfaction of our financial wants by the apprehension that German products will thereby be slightly preferred to foreign ones. … The minority of the population, which does not produce at all, but exclusively consumes, will apparently be injured by a customs system favouring the entire national production. Yet if by means of such a system the aggregate sum of the values produced in the country increase, and thus the national wealth be on the whole enhanced, the non-producing parts of the population…will eventually be benefited.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Letter to the Bundesrath committee on tariff revision (15 December 1878), quoted in Percy Ashley, Modern Tariff History: Germany–United States–France (1970), pp. 45–46
1870s

Question , Country , Freedom , Parting

“When increase of production is accompanied by an augmented pauperization of the masses, consumption must simultaneously decrease, stagnation and crises must ensue. A superabundance of actual wealth in the hands of the few must create hunger, typhus, and other epidemics among the many. The injustice - yea the idiocy - of this state of affairs is evident. The money-bags of course merely shrug their shoulders. This they will continue to do until a rope well tied over their shoulders will end all further shrugging.”

Johann Most (1846–1906) German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator

The Beast of Property (1884)

Money , Hunger

“The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?”

W.E.B. Du Bois book Black Reconstruction

Source: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 604

Democracy , Country , War , World

“Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 22.

Selfishness , Self-confidence , Secret , Idea

“The cities of that period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism which then prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What little wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private luxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of the surplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 4.

Making love , Question

“As political equality is the remedy for political tyranny, so is economic equality the only way of putting an end to the economic tyranny exercised by the few over the many through superiority of wealth. The industrial system of a nation, like its political system, should be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Until economic equality shall give a basis to political equality, the latter is but a sham.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Masthead, from Bellamy's newspaper The New Nation. Quoted in Charles Allan Madison, Critics and Crusaders: Political Economy and the American Quest for Freedom, Transaction Publishers, 1948.

Way , People , Exercises

“Pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recognition of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Condemnation of wealth and respect for poverty, such as we find in Christianity and other religions, is not socialism. The communism of early times, as it was before the existence of private property, and as it has at all times and among all peoples been the elusive dream of some enthusiasts, is not socialism. The forcible equalization advocated by the followers of Baboeuf, the so-called equalitarians, is not socialism. In all these appearances there is lacking the real foundation of capitalist society with its class antagonisms. Modern socialism is the child of capitalist society and its class antagonisms.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

Without these it could not be. Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact must be kept in mind. Whoever conceives of socialism in the sense of a sentimental philanthropic striving after human equality, with no idea of the existence of capitalist society, is no socialist in the sense of the class struggle, without which modern socialism is unthinkable. Whoever has come to a full consciousness of the nature of capitalist society and the foundation of modern socialism, knows also that a socialist movement that leaves the basis of the class struggle may be anything else, but it is not socialism.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Religion , Time , Freedom , Dreams

“One source of misunderstanding is that many of the commentators have been economists who have looked at the Moral Sentiments simply in order to find some relevance for The Wealth of Nations.”

D. D. Raphael (1916–2015) Philosopher

This gave rise to the so-called Adam Smith problem, a supposed inconsistency between the psychological assumptions of the two books. Another source of error has been a failure to note whether a particular passage was written for the first or for the sixth edition.
The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy (2007), Ch. 1: Two Versions

“The most discussed building in Mumbai is probably the twenty –seven- story of Mukesh Ambani India’s wealthiest man and the head of Reliance Industries. Ambani’s personal wealth is estimated at just under $ 25 billion, just about a billion for each floor of his Mumbai home.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Inside Out, India and China: Local Politics Go Global

Home , Personality

“Our lives are the only meaningful expression of what we believe and in Whom we believe. And the only real wealth, for any of us, lies in our faith.”

Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something

Why do I say this? Faith in a Divine Being, in the Almighty, is the great moving power that can change our lives. With it comes the only lasting comfort and peace of mind. God is our Eternal Father, and He lives. I don't understand the wonder of His majesty; I can't comprehend His glory. But I know that He is intensely interested in our welfare and involved in our lives, that I can speak with Him in prayer, and that He will hear and listen.
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

Faith

“Oh! what a frightful business is this modern society; the race for wealth — wealth.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

I am ashamed to write the word. Wealth means well-being, weal, the opposite of woe. And is that money? or can money buy it? We boast much of the purity of our faith, of the sins of idolatry among the Romanists, and we send missionaries to the poor unenlightened heathens, to bring them out of their darkness into our light, our glorious light; but oh! if you may measure the fearfulness of an idol by the blood which stains its sacrifice, by the multitude of its victims, where in all the world, in the fetish of the poor negro, in the hideous car of Indian Juggernaut, can you find a monster whose worship is polluted by such enormity as this English one of money!
Letter VII
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Business

“Many bad men are rich, many good men are poor. But we will not exchange wealth for virtue along with them. One man has money now, another has money at another time. Money goes around, whereas virtue endures.”

Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC

πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:
ἀλλ᾽ ἡμεῖς τούτοις οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον, ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.
Source: Elegies, Lines 315-318, also attributed to Solon

Money , Time , Bad luck , Men

“Capitalism subordinates men to machines instead of using machines to liberate men from the burden of mechanical and repetitive work. it subordinates all social activities to the imperatives of an incessant drive for individual enrichment in terms of money, instead of gearing social life to the development of rich individualities and their social relations. The contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, inherent in every commodity, fully unfolds itself in this contradictory nature of capitalist machinery. When capitalism is not overthrown once it has created the material and social preconditions for a classless society of associated producers, this contradiction implies the possibility of a steadily increasing transformation of the forces of production into forces of destruction, in the most literal sense of the word: not only forces of destruction of wealth (crises and wars), of human wealth and human happiness, but also forces of destruction of life tout court.”

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) Belgian economist and Marxist philosopher

Introduction to Capital. Introduction to volume 1 (1976)

Money , War , Nature , Relation ships

Quotes about wealth page 14

Quotes about wealth
page 14