Quotes about wealth
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“With the increase of wealth the mania of covetousness increases.”

John Cassian (360–435) Christian monk and theologian

Book VII Chapter VII
Institutes of the Coenobia (c. 420 AD)

“Race Disconnects
Religion Separates
Politics Divides
and Wealth Classifies.”

““Every time I communicate with young people, you charge me with your energy, fill my heart with joy. I know very well that each of you is eager to serve our dear Motherland and people. I value you immensely as the greatest wealth, priceless treasure of Uzbekistan.””

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

From the greeting speech of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the Youth Forum of Uzbekistan.
Source: https://mirziyo.uz/en/yoshlar-ozbekistonning-eng-katta-boyligi-bebaho-xazinasi/

People, Communication, Time, Heart

“What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Life

“God is the source and giver of our prosperity: “But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deut. 8:18a).”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: The Purpose and Power of Love & Marriage

God

“The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth in what seems to be an instant.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Training

“… status, as in any traditional, class-conscious society, declines more slowly than wealth.”

Mohsin Hamid book The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Source: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Books, World

“Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Religion, Art, Color

“The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income.”

Ha-Joon Chang book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Source: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

People, Way

“Today the greatest single source of wealth is between your ears.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“Wealth, my son, should never be your goal in life. Your words are eloquent but they are mere words. True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World

Life, Heart

“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
We are monkeys with money and guns.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Interview All Songs Considered, NPR, May 20, 2008

Money, Happiness, Knowledge

“This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”

Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune

Source: God Emperor of Dune

Way, Freedom

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

No. 1
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

“Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Love, Men, Hate, Soul

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Health

“At night too, she puzzled the mystery of her desperate need of kindness. As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Girl, Lovers, Night

“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

People

“I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, but it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Shoe, Change

“The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Life

“Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it's about having a lot of options.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Money, Motivational, Deep, Success

“We'll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25

Life, People, Success, Falseness

“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Wisdom, Beauty, Nature, Past

“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”

George Bernard Shaw book Candida

1890s
Source: Candida, Act I (1898)

Happiness, Happy

“Never be ruled by possessions, and never, ever make wealth more important to you than your self-respect and your dignity." - Lady Taylor”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship… the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

“The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love, Friendship, Happiness, Friendship

“Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you -- either by direct taxes, or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.”

Calvin Coolidge book The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

Source: The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Drink, Water, Sea, Cute

“Frey was the god of spring and summer! read the caption. He was the god of wealth, abundance, and fertility. His twin sister, Freya, the goddess of love, was very pretty! She had cats!”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Love, God, Spring, Cats

“No, my son, do not aspire for wealth and labor not only to be rich. Strive instead for happiness, to be loved and to love, and most important to acquire peace of mind and serenity.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World

Love, Happiness, Peace

“It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Love, Happiness

“Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

People

“Though the details differ across the world, no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth consuming, hostility provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies of religion.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Hostility, World, Religion, Time

“If either wealth or poverty are come by honesty, there is no shame.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“The First wealth is health.”

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

Health

“The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel… its poverty by how little.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Feeling, Soul

“The creation of wealth is certainly not to be despised, but in the long run the only human activities really worthwhile are the search for knowledge, and the creation of beauty. This is beyond argument, the only point of debate is which comes first.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Source: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

Beauty, Search, Knowledge

“Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.”

Rex Stout book The Red Box

Source: The Red Box

“Power, wealth and immortality--they don't bring happiness. You will never know what the word means.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Black Blood

Happiness

“No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Education, Soul, Effort

“I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Thinking

“Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never before existed. It is the creation of home.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Fear, Home

“I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody…”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“As the expression goes, we spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth.”

Douglas Coupland book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Source: Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Youth

“I just rely on natural talent," said Adrian, strolling up to the start of the Dragon's Lair. "When you have such a wealth of it to draw from, the danger comes from having too much.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Nature, Drawing

“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.”

Paul Krugman book The Conscience of a Liberal

Source: The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), Ch. 13. The Conscience of a Liberal http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=5887. W. W. Norton & Company. 352 pages ISBN 978-0-393-06069-0, 1st edition (2007)

Law, Democracy, Support

“… a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention…”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Simon, H. A. (1971) "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World" in: Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore. MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 40–41.
1960s-1970s
Context: In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

“Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on… none of you are safe.”

Frank Miller book Batman: Year One

Source: Batman: Year One

“The choice of life is not between fame and fortune, nor wealth and poverty, but between good and evil.”

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

Life, Evil

“Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Thinking

“Most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth and power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in The Golden Ratio (2002) by Mario Livio

Women, Men, Birth, Nature

“Black love is black wealth”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Love

“Wealth means nothing at all if you do not know, to the last penny, what your fortune is. You might as well be poor if you do not know what you have.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Queen

Source: The Other Queen

“Character is the one that carries whatever we become. If your wealth is bigger than your character, that wealth will be spending you, not you spending it.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

“Think back a minute to the definition of a rentier: someone who uses their control over something that already exists in order to increase their own wealth. The feudal lord of medieval times did that by building a tollgate along a road and making everybody who passed by pay. Today’s tech giants are doing basically the same thing, but transposed to the digital highway.”

Rutger Bregman (1988) Dutch journalist, writer and historian

"No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there"

Thinking, Time

“There is enough wealth in the world to satisfy everyone's needs, …”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

This quote is actually credited to an American pastor of Swiss origin Frank Buchman, founder of the Moral Rearmament movement. Misquotes that Bapu is forced to wear http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-03/ahmedabad/30238203_1_bapu-tushar-gandhi-gandhiji. Misattributed

World

“Mathematics because of its nature and structure is peculiarly fitted for high school instruction [Gymnasiallehrfach]. Especially the higher mathematics, even if presented only in its elements, combines within itself all those qualities which are demanded of a secondary subject. It engages, it fructifies, it quickens, compels attention, is as circumspect as inventive, induces courage and self-confidence as well as modesty and submission to truth. It yields the essence and kernel of all things, is brief in form and overflows with its wealth of content. It discloses the depth and breadth of the law and spiritual element behind the surface of phenomena; it impels from point to point and carries within itself the incentive toward progress; it stimulates the artistic perception, good taste in judgment and execution, as well as the scientific comprehension of things. Mathematics, therefore, above all other subjects, makes the student lust after knowledge, fills him, as it were, with a longing to fathom the cause of things and to employ his own powers independently; it collects his mental forces and concentrates them on a single point and thus awakens the spirit of individual inquiry, self-confidence and the joy of doing; it fascinates because of the view-points which it offers and creates certainty and assurance, owing to the universal validity of its methods. Thus, both what he receives and what he himself contributes toward the proper conception and solution of a problem, combine to mature the student and to make him skillful, to lead him away from the surface of things and to exercise him in the perception of their essence. A student thus prepared thirsts after knowledge and is ready for the university and its sciences. Thus it appears, that higher mathematics is the best guide to philosophy and to the philosophic conception of the world (considered as a self-contained whole) and of one’s own being.”

Christian Heinrich von Dillmann (1829–1899) German educationist

Source: Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1889), p. 40.

Truth, World, School, Law

“I care for riches, to make gifts
To friends, or lead a sick man back to health
With ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealth
For daily gladness; once a man be done
With hunger, rich and poor are all as one.”

Euripidés Electra

Electra (413 BC)

Hunger, Health

“Since the eighteenth century the immense expansion of the worlds wealth has come about as a result of a correspondingly immense expansion of credit, which in turn has demanded increasingly stupendous suspensions of disbelief.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 8, Holy Dread, p. 197-198

World

“Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 77

Money, Freedom

“To refrain from unlawful and impious source of pleasures is an ornament to the poor and to be thankful for the riches granted is the adornment of wealth.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Pleasure

“Nay, Spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason,
And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended
In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended;
But this is the harvest and the garnering season,
And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended.”

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

Love is Enough (1872), Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding

Happiness, Dreams, Spring, Summer

“The idea of natural order, in effect, masks the state’s role. … Robert Hale … demonstrated the extent to which the distribution of income and wealth is the product of legal rules we choose to impose. Hale trained our attention on the foundational rules of property and contract law, showing how free, voluntary, compensated exchange is in fact a product of the legal coercion that the government establishes through its role in defining property rights.”

Bernard Harcourt (1963) American academic

Source: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011), p. 32

Law, Idea, Nature, Training

“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

As quoted by Raymond Lonergan in Mr. Justice Brandeis, Great American (1941), p. 42.
Extra-judicial writings

Democracy

“A very bold political measure of Lycurgus is his redistribution of the land. For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

People, Disease, Affliction, Envy

“If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their mingling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, will lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.

Life, People, Animals

“The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly chose to exclude for demonstrating an unseemly "veneration of wealth" are now de facto in force and higher than the Founding Fathers could have imagined.”

Bill Moyers (1934) American journalist

Moyers on Democracy (2008), Introduction, p. 3

Imagination

“These decrees of yours are no different from spiders' webs. They'll restrain anyone weak and insignificant who gets caught in them, but they'll be torn to shreds by people with power and wealth.”

Anacharsis Scythian philosopher

Discussing Solon's laws with him, as quoted by Plutarch, in Solon ch. 5; translation by Robin Waterfield from Plutarch Greek Lives (1998) p. 50.
Variants:
Written laws are like spiders’ webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones.
as quoted in Beeton's Book of Jokes and Jests, or Good Things Said and Sung, Second Edition, Printed by Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1866.

People

“India is yet another major victim of Islam. The day Muhammad bin Qasim, entered Sindh as a conqueror, must rank as the most ominous, odious and outrageous moment in the history of India, whose proud, pious and powerful traditions have been the torch-bearer of world civilisation. The Indians, used to enjoying the warmth of ahinsa, were stunned by the violence that the Arab raiders displayed in robbing the rich and seducing the indigenous damsels. Yet the irony was that they did all this in the name of the Most Compassionate and Just Allah, who counts these felonies as acts of fairness when they are committed to torture the unbelievers. Then, this land that had become indifferent to the vicissitudes of history owing to a very long period of prosperity and plentitude, was attracted by more Islamic predators, who rushed in through the Khaiber Pass to loot her wealth, dishonour her daughters and crush her ethos that had stood the test of time despite its proneness to physical comforts and spiritual mirages such as ahinsa.”

Anwar Shaikh (1928–2006) British Pakistani writer

Anwar Shaikh (1998). Anwar Shaikh's Islam, the Arab imperialism. Cardiff: Principality Publishers.

World, History, Time, Daughters

“Knowledge or wealth to few are given,
But mark how just the ways of Heaven:
True joy to all is free.
Nor wealth nor knowledge grant the boon:
'Tis thine, O conscience, thine alone,
It all belongs to thee.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Knowledge: an Ode (c. 1761)

Way, Knowledge, Joy

“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 9 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Beauty

“Though departing from the Truth as it is in Jesus, through introducing Ways of Life attended with unnecessary Expences, many Wants have arisen, the Minds of People have been employ'd in studying to get Wealth, and in this Pursuit, some departing from Equity, have retain'd a Profession of Religion; others have look'd at their Example, and thereby been stengthen'd to proceed further in the same Way: Thus many having encourag'd the Trade of taking Men from Africa and selling them as Slaves.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 292; cited in: On The Slave Trade by John Woolman http://www.qhpress.org/texts/oldqwhp/wool-496.htm on qhpress.org, 2013

Life, Men, People, Truth

“The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Ægeus, Frag. 7

Men

“Some people work just to make the money to support the other things in their life that provide meaning, be it a family or a cause or a hobby that may seem silly to you or me but is central to their individual pursuit of happiness. Some people don’t work for money at all. Priests, stay-at-home parents, and volunteers in a thousand different institutions aren’t pursuing wealth; they are pursuing meaning through love and love through meaning.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

Love, Life, Money, Happiness

“For those who labor, I propose to improve unemployment insurance, to expand minimum wage benefits, and by the repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to make the labor laws in all our states equal to the laws of the 31 states which do not have tonight right-to-work measures. And I also intend to ask the Congress to consider measures which, without improperly invading state and local authority, will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest. The third path is the path of liberation. It is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives. A great nation is one which breeds a great people. A great people flower not from wealth and power, but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius. That alone is a Great Society. Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome. We can subdue and we can master these forces—bring increased meaning to our lives—if all of us, government and citizens, are bold enough to change old ways, daring enough to assault new dangers, and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life, People, Law, Dreams

“"You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet… you are here, drinking alone, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to ending me. Why?"
"Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives."
"So it's pride."
"It's always pride."
"Pride is just a shout into the wind."
He shakes his head, voice deepening. "I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind - how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall." He leans forward. "So you see, pride is the only thing."”

Pierce Brown book Golden Son

Source: Golden Son (2015), Ch. 11: Red; Karnus and Darrow

Love, Life, Family, Drink

“The worker is no longer the slave to his reproductive urge. He is a free bargaining agent who enters the market to dispose of the one commodity he commands — labor power — and if he gets a rise in wages he will not be so foolish as to squander it in a self-defeating proliferation of his numbers.
The capitalist faces him in the arena. His greed and lust for wealth are caustically described in those chapters that leave the abstract world for a look into 1860 England. But it is worth noting that he is not money hungry from mere motives of rapacity; he is an owner-entrepreneur engaged in an endless race against his fellow owner-entrepreneurs; he must strive for accumulation, for in the competitive environment in which he operates, one accumulates or one gets accumulated.
The stage is set and the characters take their places. But now the first difficulty appears. How, asks Marx, can profits exist in such a situation? If everything sells for its exact value, then who gets an unearned increment?”

Robert L. Heilbroner book The Worldly Philosophers

Source: The Worldly Philosophers (1953), Chapter VI, Karl Marx, p. 148

Money, World, Motivation, Appearance

“Science offers no alternative framework. The best it can offer is wealth in a wide sense of the term, that is to say, the satisfaction of a wide variety of desires. It cannot conceive of any means of achieving that escape from desires we call "contentment" otherwise than through the satisfaction of those desires; it has not yet learnt that there is no limit to the multiplication of desires, nor that, since different people's desires are often mutually incompatible, an indefinite multiplication of desires increases conflict as well as discontent.”

Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne (1896–1982) British rower, agriculturalist and translater

Intellectual Freedom (1971)

People, Sense, Science

“Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 91.

Freedom

“Is it wise to say to men of rank and property, who, from old lineage or present possessions have a deep interest in the common weal, that they live indeed in a country where, by the blessings of a free constitution, it is possible for any man, themselves only excepted, by the honest exertions of talents and industry, in the avocations of political life, to make him-self honoured and respected by his countrymen, and to render good service, to the slate; that they alone can never be permitted to enter this career? That they may indeed usefully employ themselves, in the humbler avocations of private life, but that public service they never can perform, public honour they never shall attain? What we have lost by the continuance of this system, it is not for man to know. What we may have lost can more easily be imagined. If it had unfortunately happened that by the circumstances of birth and education, a Nelson, a Wellington, a Burke, a Fox, or a Pitt, had belonged to this class of the community, of what honours and what glory might not the page of British history have been deprived? To what perils and calamities might not this country have been exposed? The question is not whether we would have so large a part of the population Catholic or not. There they are, and we must deal with them as we can. It is in vain to think that by any human pressure, we can stop the spring which gushes from the earth. But it is for us to consider whether we will force it to spend its strength in secret and hidden courses, undermining our fences, and corrupting our soil, or whether we shall, at once, turn the current into the open and spacious channel of honourable and constitutional ambition, converting it into the means of national prosperity and public wealth.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1813/mar/01/mr-grattans-motion-for-a-committee-on in the House of Commons in favour of Catholic Emancipation (1 March 1813). 1810s

Life, Men, Secret, Education

“You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.”

John Buchan book The Power-House

Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 3 "Tells of a Midsummer Night"

Secret, Knowledge

“In order for a slave--or, for that matter, a slaveholder--to become free, a series of successive perceptions must be realized. First, the person must perceive that the owners (and slaves) are merely human, that is, putting all rhetoric aside, that there exists a dichotomy of privilege and exploitation, and that the privilege is a result of exploitation. … The second realization is, once again, that the owners and slaves are merely human, meaning this time that the exploitation and consequent privilege are not inevitable, but the result of social arrangements and force (as well as a huge dollop of bad luck on the part of those enslaved). … The third realization is yet again that the owners are merely human, by which I now mean they are vulnerable. Wealth does not protect them.”

Derrick Jensen book The Culture of Make Believe

Source: The Culture of Make Believe (2003), p. 63

Bad luck, Time, Success, Parting

“Man created in the divine image, the protagonist of a great drama in which his soul was at stake, was replaced by man the wealth-seeking and –consuming animal.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 6.

Soul, Animals

“There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundless
And the choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.”

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) English writer and poet

Of Compensation.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)

Life, Pleasure, Lie

“I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, October surprise speech (1968)

People, Lie, Country

“And this is where it went. In places all around the eastern Mediterranean the sea is separated from the mainland by strips of flat marshy land like this. Made up of the soil that once clothed the hills beyond. All this was deposited during the last 2000 years. This is the marsh that now separates the sea from the city of Ephesus. These ruined buildings mark the edge of the quay where once merchant ships lay moored. As the harbour died, so did the trade upon which the city's wealth was based, and so, well, ultimately did Ephesus itself. What was once one of the most splendid cities in the Roman Empire fell into decay and was abandoned.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

50 min 10 sec
The First Eden (1987)

Sea, Clothes

“We must mention the higher, nobler wealth, which does not belong to all, but to truly noble and divinely gifted men. This wealth is bestowed by wisdom through the doctrines and principles of ethic, logic and physic, and from these spring the virtues, which rid the soul of its proneness to extravagance, and engender the love of contentment and frugality, which will assimilate it to God. For God has no wants, He needs nothing, being in Himself all-sufficient to Himself, while the fool has many wants, ever thirsting for what is not there, longing to gratify his greedy and insatiable desire, which he fans into a blaze like a fire and brings both great and small within its reach. But the man of worth has few wants, standing midway between mortality and immortality.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

167-169.
On the Virtues

Love, Wisdom, Men, God

“…we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.”

Justin Martyr book First Apology of Justin Martyr

First Apology, chap. xiv (trans. Marcus Dods)

Men, God, Hate, Hope

“In a democratic republic, Engels continues, "wealth wields its power indirectly, all the more effectively," first, by means of the "direct corruption of the officials (America); second, by the means of "the alliance between the government and the Stock Exchange”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

France and America
1.3: The State as an Instrument for the Exploitation of The Oppressed Class, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
The State and Revolution (1917)

“The idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible. And it's not because white people aren't privileged. We have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful for your privileges and work to deserve them. But the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group - there is absolutely nothing that's more racist than that. It's absolutely abhorrent. If you really want to know more about that sort of thing, you should read about the Kulaks in the Soviet Union in the 1920's. They were farmers who were very productive. They were the most productive element of the agricultural strata in Russia. And they were virtually all killed, raped, and robbed by the collectivists who insisted that because they showed signs of wealth, they were criminals and robbers. One of the consequences of the prosecution of the Kulaks was the death of six million Ukrainians from a famine in the 1930's. The idea of collectively held guilt at the level of the individual as a legal or philosophical principle is dangerous. It's precisely this sort of danger that people who are really looking for trouble would push. Just a cursory glance at 20th century history should teach anyone who wants to know exactly how unacceptable that is.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Death, People, History, Idea

“Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth. (p.46)”

Marshall McLuhan book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Understanding Media (1964)

Love, World, Sex, Bee

“He's actually a rather good ruler. Better, I suspect, than most of our Christian monarchs. He's certainly been good for Mysore. He's fetched it a deal of wealth, given it more justice than most countries enjoy in India and he's been tolerant to most religions, though I fear he did persecute some unfortunate Christians.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Colonel Hector McCandless, on the Tippo Sultan, p. 300
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Fear, Religion, Justice, Country

“In his reign Hajib Toghantugeen, an officer of his government, proceeded in command of an army towards Hindoostan, and being appointed governor of Lahore, crossed the Ganges, and carried his conquests farther than any Mussulman had hitherto done, except the Emperor Mahmood. Like him he plundered many rich cities and temples of their wealth, and returned in triumph to Lahore, which now became in some measure the capital of the empire, for the Suljooks having deprived the house of Ghizny of most of its territory both in Eeran and Tooran, the royal family went to reside in India.”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

About Sultãn Mas‘ûd III of Ghazni (AD 1099-1151) Uttar Pradesh Tãrîkh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, p. 82

Family, Housing

“Senator Obama said that he wants to spread the wealth and he wants government to take your money and decide how to best to redistribute it according to his priorities. Joe suggested that sounded a little bit like socialism. Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy and it's what Barack Obama will do to those who want to create jobs.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Rally in West Chester, Ohio, , quoted in [2008-10-17, Palin Aligns Obama’s Economic Policies with ‘Socialism’, Elizabeth, Holmes, Washington Wire, The Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/17/palin-aligns-obamas-economic-policies-with-socialism/] Referring to Senator Barack Obama saying to Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher on about progressive taxation, "And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody" and Wurzelbacher saying of it http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2008/10/16/Joe-the-plumber-isn-t-licensed.html to the Toledo Blade, "That's a pretty socialist comment." 2014

Money

“Communism means barbarism, but Socialism means, or wishes to mean, cooperation and community of interests, sympathy, the giving to the hands not so large a share as to the brains, but a larger share than hitherto in the wealth they must combine to produce - means, in short, the practical application of Christianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly and benign reconstruction.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

On Democracy (6 October 1884)

Life, Secret, Communication

“Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes
Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes;
Antiquity and birth are needless here;
‘Tis impudence and money makes a peer.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Pt. I, l. 360-363. The True-Born Englishman http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm (1701)

Money, Birth

Quotes about wealth page 3

Quotes about wealth
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