Quotes about wealth
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“If you do not have the capacity for happiness with a little money, great wealth will not bring it to you.”

William Feather (1889–1981) Publisher, Author

The Business of Life (1949)

“The rise of National Socialism is the protest of a people against a State that denies the right to work. If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered. The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people.”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

At the Reichstag (May 1934) "The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany" p. 165 - by Nagendranath Gangulee - National socialism (1942)

People, World, Parting, Falseness

“Collectivists would have you believe that individualism is merely another word for selfishness, because individualists oppose welfare and other forms of coercive redistribution of wealth, but just the opposite is true. Individualists advocate true charity, which is the voluntary giving of their own money, while collectivists advocate the coercive giving of other people's money; which, of course, is why it is so popular.”

G. Edward Griffin (1931) American conspiracy theorist, film producer, author, and political lecturer

The Chasm: The Future Is Calling (Part One) (2003–2009)

Money, People, Selfishness

“Capitalism subordinates men to machines instead of using machines to liberate men from the burden of mechanical and repetitive work. it subordinates all, 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)

Life, Men, War, Happiness

“Europe is to be turned into a banana republic by taxing labor – not finance, insurance or real estate (FIRE). Governments are to impose heavier employment and sales taxes while cutting back pensions and other public spending. … The financial privatization and credit-creation monopoly that governments have relinquished to banks is now to really pay off – at the price of breaking up Europe. … The unelected members of the European Central Bank have taken over planning power from elected governments. Beholden to its financial constituency, the ECB has convinced the EU commission to back the new oligarchic power grab. … In sum, the Neoliberal Revolution seeks to achieve in Europe what the United States has achieved since real wages stopped rising in 1979: doubling the share of wealth enjoyed by the richest 1%. This involves reducing the middle class to poverty, breaking union power, and destroying the internal market as a precondition.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Who Wins? http://michael-hudson.com/2010/10/who-wins/ (October 3, 2010) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

“There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, — that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.
Union and co-operation in war obviously increase the power of the individual a thousand fold. Is there the shadow of a reason why they should not produce equal effects in peace; why the principle of co-operation should not give to men the same superior powers, and advantages, (and much greater) in the creation, preservation, distribution and enjoyment of wealth?”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

The Social System (1826)

Men, War, Happiness, Peace

“And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 30, p. 181
Leviathan (1651)

Men, Law, Nature, Personality

“It is good to recall how our freedom has been gained in this country—not by great abstract campaigns but through the objections of ordinary men and women to having their money taken from them by the State. In the early days, people banded together and said to the then Government, “You shall not take our money before you have redressed our grievances”. It was their money, their wealth, which was the source of their independence against the Government.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (20 October 1967) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101586 Backbench MP

Women, Men, Money, People

“Creative destruction can apply to economic concepts as well. And this downturn offers an excellent opportunity to get rid of one that has long outlived its usefulness: gross domestic product. G. D. P. is one measure of national income, of how much wealth Americans make, and it’s a deeply foolish indicator of how the economy is doing. It ought to join buggy.”

Eric Zencey (1953–2019) American writer

Eric Zencey, in G.D.P. R.I.P. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10zencey.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, The New York Times, 9 August 9, 2009

“The modern institution of the presidency is the primary political evil Americans face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. Teachers used to tell school kids that anyone can be president. This is like saying anyone can go to Hell. It’s not an inspiration; it’s a threat.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

6 October 1996 "Down With the Presidency" http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/down-presidency.html 1990s

War, People, Lie, School

“I wanted the State of Massachusetts, which was called a Commonwealth but was filled with private wealth and private property, to change, as the early Christians had changed. They "had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need."
… at St. Francis Acres, the intentional community to which I belonged for about twenty years, for the last fifteen years we "divided the proceeds among the fellowship [the members] according to individual needs," even as we tried to share outside the community as well.”

Dave Dellinger (1915–2004) American activist

From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of A Moral Dissenter (1993).

Men, Communication, Change, Parting

“On the other hand, the State is an anti-social organization, originating in conquest and concerned only with the confiscation of property. The State began with the practice of nomadic tribes swooping down on some agricultural community, confiscating the movable wealth and, after slaying the less productive inhabitants, carrying off to slavery a number of others. Slavery is the first institution of the State.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist (1962), p. 147

Communication

“I have sometimes thought there could be no stronger testimony in favor of Religion or against temporal Enjoyments even the most rational and manly than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent Advocates in the cause of Christ, & I wish you may give in your Evidence in this way. Such instances have seldom occurred, therefore they would be more striking and would be instead of a "Cloud of Witnesses."”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to William Bradford (September 1773), quoted in The Lustre of Our Country : The American Experience of Religious Freedom (2000) by John Thomas Noonan, p. 66
1770s

Men, Religion, Way, Christ

“A natural-rights libertarian values the life of the innocent individual. Only by protecting each individual's rights—life, liberty and property—can the government legitimately enhance the wealth of the collective. Only through fulfilling its night watchman role can government legitimately safeguard the wealth of the nation. For each individual, secure in his person and property, is then free to pursue economic prosperity, which redounds to the rest.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/21/barcelona-and-beyond-how-politicians-wonks-play-god/, Daily Caller, August 21, 2017. Barcelona and Beyond: How Politicians & Policy Wonks Play God With Your Life http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/barcelona_and_beyond_how_politicians_and_policy_wonks_play_god_with_your_life_.html, American Thinker, August 20, 2017. 2010s, 2017

Life, Nature, Personality, Night

“We select our furniture to serve as visible symbols of our taste, wealth, and social position. We often choose our residences on the basis of a feeling that it "looks well" to have a "good address." We trade in perfectly good cars for later models, not always to get better transportation, but to give evidence to the community that we can afford it.2 ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), The Symbolic Process, p. 26

Cars, Feeling, Communication

“He was referring, of course, to the gentleman employed by Henry Luce and you will note, at once, the slightly unpleasant and combative tone of the salesman but there is also so much glee contained in it, an anticipation of the joys of a difficult battle, that even a person of fine scruples, sensitive to the vulgarity of the salesman type (such as yourself, Professor) need not be offended but rather challenged by the contradiction contained herein, i. e. that this crass aggression can co-exist with an ability to draw very fine moral distinctions and to see, very objectively, the damage his father's business was doing to the fauna of the country he loved and that, further - like real estate for instance - it was one of those great Australian enterprises that generate wealth while making nothing new.”

Peter Carey book Illywhacker

Page 561.
Illywhacker (1985)

Love, Business, Joy, Drawing

“After the rainy season was over, he made up his mind to take possession of the fort of Narwar which was in the domain of Mãlwã. He ordered Jalãl Khãn Lodî, the governor of Kãlpî, to go there and besiege the fort… The Sultãn himself reached Narwar after some time… He kept the fort under siege for an year… The soldiers went out to war everyday and got killed… “Thereafter the inhabitants of the fort were in plight due to scarcity of water and dearness of grains, and they asked for forgiveness. They went out with their wealth and property. The Sultãn laid waste the temples and raised mosques. Men of learning and students were made to reside there and given scholarships and grants. He stayed for six months under the walls of the fort.”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Sikandar Lodî (AD 1489-1517) Narwar (Madhya Pradesh)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

Men, War, Forgiveness, Learning

“The worst side effect of wealth is the social associations it forces on its victims, as people with big houses end up socializing with other people with big houses.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 174

People, Housing

“Wealth, for the purposes of economic study, is confined to those values attaching to material objects through the action of man, which values can be exchanged /or other values.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: Economics for Helen (1924), Ch. 1 : What is Wealth?

Study

“What does peace mean in a world in which the combined wealth of the world's 587 billionaires exceeds the combined gross domestic product of the world's 135 poorest countries? Or when rich countries that pay farm subsidies of a billion dollars a day, try and force poor countries to drop their subsidies? What does peace mean to people in occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya? Or to the aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Ogoni of Nigeria? Or the Kurds in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What does peace mean to non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted from their lands by dams and development projects? What does peace mean to the poor who are being actively robbed of their resources and for whom everyday life is a grim battle for water, shelter, survival and, above all, some semblance of dignity? For them, peace is war.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

A selection from a speech entitled "Peace given on November 7, 2004 while accepting the Sydney Peace Prize.
Speeches

Life, Women, War, People

“[Talking about the royal family] 'Cause they got in at '52, and then immediately the Queen introduced the new … then in the '60s, the Queen decided to change the way that … and she encouraged people to … and in the '70s she completely redistributed … and realised she had too much wealth, so she decided to … then in the '80s, they set up a charity to do … and then they encouraged other people to … and in the '90s, they just totally relaxed, and they said, "Everyone, why don't you …" And then in the 2000s, they've set a great example by … stop me at any point. I think she's got 20 years left. She's in there, but she essentially does what she does on the stamps.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Stripped (2009)

People, Family, Way, Thinking

“The vastness and the free sweep of our concentrated wealth on the one side, the independence, intelligence, moral vigor, and political power of the common people on the other side, promise a long-drawn grapple of contesting forces which may well make the heart of every American patriot sink within him.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Introduction, p. xi-xii

People, Intelligence, Heart

“The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.”

Francis Parkman (1823–1893) American historian

Introduction
Pioneers of France in the New World (1865)

Business, Effort

“When we inherit stolen wealth in a will, we would live under a stolen future – thereby mortgaging our future. Remember, what comes from God goes to Him. What comes from truth goes to truth. What comes from stealing goes to stealing. What comes from destruction goes to destruction.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On leaders who store up wealth illegally - "Choose The Path Of A Champion" http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/religion/Choose-The-Path-Of-A-Champion-T-B-Joshua-s-Seasons-Greetings-200153 Ghana Web (December 25 2010)

God, Truth, Future

“Architecture has its political Use; public Buildings being the Ornament of a Country; it establishes a Nation, draws People and Commerce; makes the People love their native Country, which Passion is the Original of all great Actions in a Common-wealth…. Architecture aims at Eternity.”

Christopher Wren (1632–1723) English architect

"Of Architecture", Parentalia; or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens, comp. by his son Christopher (1750, reprinted 1965), Appendix, p. 351.

Love, People, Passion, Drawing

“It is these double standards that have and are still keeping the ordinary Fijian shackled to a now outdated system of feudal control, thus contributing to their poverty and misery, whilst certain chiefs and a large number of Fijian elites continue to substantially increase their wealth at the expense of their poorer subjects.”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

Reaction to Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's address to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Nadi, 31 August 2005

“It is to labour… and to labour only, that man owes every thing possessed of exchangeable value. Labour is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage — that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields… Labour tho that has covered the earth with cities and the ocean with ships — of wealth that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and barbarism.”

John Ramsay McCulloch (1789–1864) Scottish economist, author and editor

Source: The principles of political economy, 1825, p. 55-56 ;

Change

“The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.”

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

The Failure of Christianity (1913)

Christ

“The Church attempted to regulate this rather violent society, and eventually a code of honor evolved known as the code of chivalry. (…) Those who aspired to be knights had to have aristocratic ancestors and wealth enough to own warhorses and armor and to provide for a team of supporters.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Overview: Castles in Context
Medieval castles (2005)

Support

“To get wealth and security by guile
Is like one who pours water into a pot of unbaked clay.”

Thiruvalluvar book Tirukkuṛaḷ

Verse LXVI.10
Tirukkural

Water

“Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

The Star, January 30, 2007.
2007

Money

“The wealth of a churchman God gives it, and the Devil takes it away.”

James Howell (1594–1666) Anglo-Welsh historian and writer

Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660)

God

“All religions are ultimately cargo cults.
Adherents perform required rituals, follow
specific rules, and expect to be supernaturally
gifted with desired rewards—long life,
honor, wisdom, children, good health, wealth,
victory over opponents, immortality after
death, any desired rewards.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 19 (p. 357)

Life, Death, Wisdom, Children

“No decision in business provides greater potential for the creation of wealth (or its destruction, come to think of it) than the choice of which innovation to back.”

Robert Heller (1932–2012) British magician

Source: The Decision makers (1989), Ch. 5. The Innovators’

Business, Thinking, Decision

“[Increasing] politicization means the [economic] expansion is slowing up and you are no longer attempting to achieve increased output per capita, or increased wealth, or increased satisfactions… but you are doing so by mobilizing power. We have seen this going on for almost a century. …increased militarization.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

“Be charitable before Wealth makes thee covetous.”

Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English polymath

Letter to a Friend (circa 1656)

“What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine,
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine.”

Felicia Hemans (1793–1835) English poet

Stanza 9. The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers http://www.poetry-archive.com/h/landing_of_the_pilgrim_fathers.html (1826)

War, Faith, Sea

“As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html Aljazeera, (01 Nov 2004) 2000s, 2004

Hope, Fraud, Freedom, Light

“Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.”

Gerard O'Neill (1927–1992) Physicist, author, and inventor

The High Frontier (1976)

War, World, Problem

“I think everybody has the same concerns about helping people when they're having trouble. The question is whether it should be done through coercion, or voluntary means, or local government. And I opt out from the federal government doing it, because that involves central economic planning. So even if we accept the gentleman's moral premise, in a practical way it's a total failure. We'd have been better off taking the amount of money and giving every single family $20,000, and they'd all been better off, than the way we did it. We bought all these trailer homes and they sat out in the open, so the whole thing is insane, it's a total waste. And besides, the reason I don't like these federal government programs, it encourages people like me to build on the beach. I have a house on the beach in the gulf of Mexico. But why don't I assume my own responsibility, why doesn't the market tell me what the insurance rates should be? Because it would be very very high. But, because we want it subsidized, we ask the people of Arizona to subsidize my insurance so I can take greater danger, my house gets blown down, and then the people of Arizona rebuild it?! My statement back during the time of Katrina, which was a rather risky political statement: why do the people of Arizona have to pay for me to take my risk… less people will be exposed to danger if you don't subsidize risky behavior… I think it's a very serious mistake to think that central economic planning and forcibly transferring wealth from people who don't take risks to people who take risks is a proper way to go.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

The Charles Goyette Show, March 30, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6RMVUOaeA8 2000s, 2006-2009

Money, People, Family, Way

“No conception of democracy as geared toward reducing domination can ignore the relations between the political system and the distribution of income and wealth.”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

The State of Democratic Theory (2003), Chapter 5. Democracy and Distribution.

Democracy

“We are squandering our wealth in many respects, to the extent that we persist in our imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom.”

Andrew Bacevich (1947) United States Army officer

Moyer's Journal, 2008 August 15.

Freedom

“Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

As quoted in Hindu Psychology : Its Meaning for the West (1946) by Swami Akhilananda, p. 204

God, Perfection

“We have defined the main task of economic analysis as the explanation of the magnitudes of economic quantities. The student will find also that the main part of this, as of most other works on the subject, is concerned with the theory of the determination of prices, wages, interest rates, incomes, and the like. He may well inquire, therefore, in the midst of so much mathematics, whether the first task of economics is not the investigation of wealth, or welfare. Some economists have endeavored to restrict the boundaries of the science to the investigation of those quantities which are numerically measurable. Well-being, under such a restriction, would not be part of economics at all.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1940s, Economic Analysis, 1941, p. 7-8

Mathematics, Science, Parting

“I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things. First, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mister Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. Though Mister Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. The man who could say, 'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether', gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the south was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

About Abraham Lincoln https://web.archive.org/web/20150302203311/http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=4071#_ftnref57. 1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

God, Hate, War, People

“But some, making no account of the wealth of nature, pursue the wealth of vain opinions. They choose to lean on one who lacks rather than one who has the gift of sight, and with this defective guidance to their steps must of necessity fall.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

167.
On the Virtues

Nature

“The nature of women's oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children — we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Woman Hating, ch. 9, p. 23, E.P. Dutton, New York (1974).

Life, Women, Children, Way

“The Venetian Bridge and the fine cliff walks are a handsome background for a wealth of entertainment which most visitors find irresistible.”

Arthur Mee (1875–1943) British journalist and writer

Page 63, Clacton on Sea.
The King's England: Essex

“Poverty, ignorance, illness and other problems of that kind are not metaphysical emergencies. By the metaphysical nature of man and of existence, man has to maintain his life by his own effort; the values he needs—such as wealth or knowledge—are not given to him automatically, as a gift of nature, but have to be discovered and achieved by his own thinking and work.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Life, Nature, Knowledge, Problem

“Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely?
When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear; it gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity of such wealth as this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honor. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of business as if the earth, too, shuddered under a blow.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley book Trent's Last Case

Source: Trent's Last Case (1912), Chapter I: "Bad News"

World, Business, Tear, Memory

“There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase of population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of co-operation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it..”

John Stuart Mill book Principles of Political Economy

Principles of Political Economy (1848), Book IV, Chapter VI, §3, p. 516

Life, World, Hope, Art

“The American death penalty exists and it withstands in America because it was a basic and constitutive element of its birth and development. Of the famous 102 «Wandering Fathers» that for first they disembarked from the «Mayflower» in that Continent not to ransack the wealths as they made Spaniards and Portuguese in Mexico and in America of the South, but to build you a new and free society, around the two bystanders they were leftovers of jail that ran away the Justice and the jails of Europe, and a bystander they were men that liberty looked for, and above all that religious. The first ones had in pocket the gun, the seconds the Bible, but in his/her Calvinist version that of the retaliation, based on the conception of a God executioner that demands the death of whom without correct motive it gives it.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Corriere della Sera, 9 July 2000.
2000s - 2010s

Death, Men, God, Justice

“Even in America, the Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone — but never hustled.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

Ch. 35 http://books.google.com/books?id=-ThaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Even+in+America+the+Indian+Summer+of+life+should+be+a+little+sunny+and+a+little+sad+like+the+season+and+infinite+in+wealth+and+depth+of+tone+but+never+hustled%22&pg=PA502#v=onepage. The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life, Sadness, Summer, Season

“What agents would choose in certain well- defined conditions of ignorance (in the “original position”) is, for Rawls, an important criterion for determining which conception of “justice” is normatively acceptable. Why should we agree that choice under conditions of ignorance is a good criterion for deciding what kind of society we would wish to have? William Morris in the late nineteenth century claimed to prefer a society of more or less equal grinding poverty for all (e. g., the society he directly experienced in Iceland) to Britain with its extreme discrepancies of wealth and welfare, even though the least well-off in Britain were in absolute terms better off than the peasants and fishermen of Iceland.” This choice seems to have been based not on any absolute preference for equality (or on a commitment to any conception of fairness), but on a belief about the specific social (and other) evils that flowed from the ways in which extreme wealth could be used in an industrial capitalist society.” Would no one in the original position entertain views like these? Is Morris’s vote simply to be discounted? On what grounds? The “veil of ignorance” is artificially defined so as to allow certain bits of knowledge “in” and to exclude other bits. No doubt it would be possible to rig the veil of ignorance so that it blanks out knowledge of the particular experiences Morris had and the theories he developed, and renders them inaccessible in the original position, but one would then have to be convinced that this was not simply a case of modifying the conditions of the thought experiment and the procedure until one got the result one antecedently wanted.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), pp. 87-88.

Justice, Way, Knowledge, Evil

“In a world divided by differences of nationality, race, colour, religion and wealth [the Rule of Law] is one of the greatest unifying factors, perhaps the greatest, the nearest we are likely to approach to a universal secular religion. It remains an ideal, but an ideal worth striving for, in the interests of good government and peace, at home and in the world at large.”

Thomas Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill (1933–2010) British judge

The Rule of Law (2010), Epilogue

World, Peace, Religion, Law

“To wage war within oneself is Islam; the real fight is an inner one. To dispel evil qualities, evil thoughts, and the differences that lead to separations is Islam. To wage war upon jealousy, envy, and vengeance is Islam. To cut out and discard the qualities of Satan and to fill ourselves with the qualities of Allah is Islam. To show a heart full of love to our brothers and sisters is the wealth of Islam.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Love, War, Jealousy, Sister

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

John Armstrong (1709–1779) British poet

Book II, line 195.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

Fools, Way

“I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The "dazzling royals" have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness. As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. Meanwhile the British media present 24-hour coverage of the "dazzling royals", laughing as they lavishly spend, as if such coverage is certain to make British society feel fully whole. In 2012, the British public is evidently assumed to be undersized pigmies, scarcely able to formulate thought.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from a statement on the website 'True To You' 2012
In interviews etc., About politics and society

Feeling, Nature

“The fact is, people work hard and rely on Food Stamps—or SNAP Program—to be able to feed their families. When they work full-time they still live in poverty. That's wrong in our nation. Students who are losing hope because of the difficulty of finding jobs in this tough economy. What we need to do, what is best for America, is to raise wages, create jobs, and then we will move forward. Hard-working people are trying their best, but those who hold on to capital are not sharing the wealth, and there is the problem.”

Simone Campbell (1945) American Roman Catholic Religious Sister and activist

Simone Campbell, interviewed by Al Sharpton, " Nun Responds To Hannity's 'Communist' Comparison: 'Name Calling Is About All That Exists On That Side' http://www.mediamatters.org/video/2014/04/21/nun-responds-to-hannitys-communist-comparison-n/198961," Media Matters for America video, 4:12, April 21, 2014.

People, Family, Food, Hope

“Capitalism is about the mutual creation of wealth rather than the pillaging of it.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 29.

“The notion that there might be any need for, or possibility of, profound changes in the institutions that shape American life work, family, technology, the primacy of the car and the single-family house — is foreign to the mainstream media that define our common sense. And so conflicts that cannot be addressed politically have expressed themselves by other means. From public psychodramas like the O. J. Simpson trial, the Lewinsky scandal and Columbine to disaster movies, talk shows and "reality TV," popular culture carries the burden of our emotions about race, feminism, sexual morality, youth culture, wealth, competition, exclusion, a physical and social environment that feels out of control.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Dreaming of War," The Nation (15 October 2001)

Life, Youth, Family, Cars

“Suppose the reasoning centers of the brain can get their hands on the mechanisms that plop shapes into the array and that read their locations out of it. Those reasoning demons can exploit the geometry of the array as a surrogate for keeping certain logical constraints in mind. Wealth, like location on a line, is transitive: if A is richer than B, and B is richer than C, then A is richer than C. By using location in an image to symbolize wealth, the thinker takes advantage of the transitivity of location built into the array, and does not have to enter it into a chain of deductive steps. The problem becomes a matter of plop down and look up. It is a fine example of how the form of a mental representation determines what is easy or hard to think.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 291

Problem, Thinking, Reading

“Absolutely, what we need to do is that companies must just surrender 51%. … They have exploited the wealth of that country [South Africa] for far too long. It is time that the people are now beginning to benefit. Our people don't have money to buy those shares, and they will never have money to buy those shares. … Under president Mbeki they had 2/3 majority, they could have done anything they wanted. Till today they have not done anything. … because the ANC did not want to tamper with the economic structure and … property ownership … We are going to engage in a very persuasive, peaceful engagement with capital. … We are meeting captains of the industry. Some of them are beginning to respond to our memorandum. Some are saying, well these are doable proposals. … We'll not use that [civil disobedience] until that our people are pushed to the limit. … These people are prepared to give shares to the black elite who are politically connected. … why not give it to the workers themselves who are … making this company … what it is.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

In a television interview with Zeinab Badawi of BBC HARDtalk in December 2015, Watch: Julius Malema grilled by BBC journalist http://businesstech.co.za/news/government/106007/watch-julius-malema-grilled-by-bbc-journalist/, Staff writer, BusinessTech (2 December 2015)

Money, People, Peace, Time

“We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.”

Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893) Theologian, classical scholar, and academic administrator

Actually from one of John Dewey's lectures, reprinted in his Reconstruction in Philosophy (2004), p. 96.
Misattributed

Health, Justice, Learning

“Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 1, Section I, p. 13

“Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.”

Étienne de La Boétie book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

Ils veulent servir pour amasser des biens: comme s'ils pouvaient rien gagner qui fût à eux, puisqu'ils ne peuvent même pas dire qu'ils sont à eux-mêmes.
Part 3
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

Men

“First, justice was the promise that all who made the journey would share in the fruits of the land. In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write.”

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

1960s, Inaugural address (1965)

Children, People, Family, Justice

“Jesus's poverty has made it possible for a people to exist who can live dispossessed of possessions. To be poor does not in itself make one a follower of Jesus, but it can put you in the vicinity of what it might mean to discover the kind of poverty that frees those who follow Jesus from enslavement to the world. Not to be missed, moreover, is the political significance of such poverty. Too often we fail to recognize our accommodation to worldly powers because we fear losing our wealth.”

Stanley Hauerwas (1940) American theologian

Source: Matthew (2006), p. 62 http://books.google.com/books?id=MbRzBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA62

People, World, Fear

“India represents the new world in a unique sense. Traditionally democracies were trying to bring equality to all walks of life, today there is a change. Democracy wants to enable every country to have the equal right to be different; it's a collection of differences, not an attempt to force or impose equality on every country. I think India is the greatest show of how so many differences in language, in sects can coexist facing great suffering and keeping full freedom… Many of the countries in the Middle East should learn from you how to escape poverty. You didn't escape poverty by getting American dollars or Russian Roubles but by introducing your own internal reforms and by understanding that the new call of modernity is science. In between the spiritual wealth of Gandhi and the earthly wisdom of Nehru, you combined a great performance of spirit and practice to escape poverty…I know you still have a long way to go but you do it without compromising freedom. The temptation when you're such a large country to introduce discipline and imposition is great but you tried to do it, to make progress not with force and discipline but in an open way. Many of us were educated on the literature of India when we fell in love we read Rabindranath Tagore and when we matured we tried to understand Gandhi.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

Israeli President Shimon Peres praises India as greatest 'show of co-existence' http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-04/news/35594466_1_greatest-show-mahatma-gandhi-democracies (4 December 2012)

Love, Life, Wisdom, World

“So the temples were attacked “all along the way” as the armies of Islam advanced; they were “robbed of their sculptural wealth”, “pulled down”, “laid waste”, “burnt with naptha”, “trodden under horse’s hoofs”, and “destroyed from their very foundations”, till “not a trace of them remained”. Mahmûd of Ghazni robbed and burnt down 1,000 temples at Mathura, and 10,000 in and around Kanauj. One of his successors, Ibrãhîm, demolished 1,000 temples each in Hindustan (Ganga-Yamuna Doab) and Malwa. Muhammad Ghûrî destroyed another 1,000 at Varanasi. Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak employed elephants for pulling down 1,000 temples in Delhi. “Alî I ‘Ãdil Shãh of Bijapur destroyed 200 to 300 temples in Karnataka. A sufi, Qãyim Shãh, destroyed 12 temples at Tiruchirapalli. Such exact or approximate counts, however, are available only in a few cases. Most of the time we are informed that “many strong temples which would have remained unshaken even by the trumpets blown on the Day of Judgment, were levelled with the ground when swept by the wind of Islãm.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Way, Strong, Time, Horse

“THERE is scarcely any inquiry more curious, or, from its importance, more worthy of attention, than that which traces the causes which practically check the progress of wealth in different countries, and stop it, or make it proceed very slowly, while the power of production remains comparatively undiminished, or at least would furnish the means of a great and abundant increase of produce and population.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section I, p. 309
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

Country

“The fate of the Statute of Uses is one of the most curious in legal history. Its secret and unavowed purpose, of securing the estates of the monasteries for the Crown, it accomplished. Its ostensible purpose, fortified by a wealth of hypocritical justification, it entirely failed to achieve. Not only were devises of lands, after a brief interval, put on a legal footing; but, as is well known, uses of lands as distinguished from legal estates, soon re-appeared in full vigour. Whilst in unforeseen directions, that statute worked havoc in the medieval system of conveyancing; and gradually modernized it out of existence.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter VII, New Interests In land, p. 99

Fate, Secret, History, Appearance

“Government, management and unions…have now…jointly embarked for the first time in Britain, on the path of working out together how to create and share the nation's wealth for the benefit of all the people. It is an offer to employers and unions to share fully with the Government the benefits and the obligations involved in running the national economy.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool (14 October 1972), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), pp. 473-474.
Prime Minister

People, Time

“Wealth is the fountain head of passions.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Passion

“It cannot be maintained that Islam did not provide an ample opportunity to Hindu saints, philosophers and princes to understand its true character and role. Before the armies of Islam invaded India, the sufis had settled down in many parts of India, built mosque and khanqahs and started their work of conversion. They were the sappers and miners of Islamic invasions which followed in due course. Moinuddin Chishti was not the first 'saint' of Islam to send out an invitation to an Islamic invader to come and kill the kafirs, desecrate their shrines, and plunder their wealth.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Understanding, Parting

“Except for the subserviency of most of the metropolitan newspapers, the great corporate interests would never have ventured upon the impudent, lawless consolidation of business, for the suppression of competition, the control of production, markets and prices.
Except for this monstrous crime, 65 per cent of all the wealth of this country would not now be centralized in the hands of 2 per cent of the people.”

Robert M. La Follette Sr. (1855–1925) American politician

"Fooling the People as a Fine Art", La Follette's Magazine (April 1918)

People, Business, Country

“Indians of old were keenly alive to the expansion of dominions, acquisition of wealth, and the development of trade, industry and commerce. The material prosperity they gained in these various ways was reflected in the luxury and elegance that characterized the society… The adventurous spirit of the Indians carried them even as far as the North Sea, while their caravans traveled from one end of Asia to the other.”

R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980) Indian historian

R. C. Majumdar, Ancient India, 1977, p. 210-216.

Way, Travel, Sea

“As a child growing up in the precincts of wealth, and later as a college student, newspaper reporter and resident of New York's Upper East Side, I got used to listening to the talk of financial killings and sexual misalliance that animates the conversation of the rich and the familiars of the rich.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 4, The Romance of Crime, p. 105-106

Animals

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

al-Shahid al-Tustari, Ihqaqul-Haq, vol.12, p. 434
General

God, Fear, Smile, Knowledge

“The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Though attributed to John D. Rockefeller, Sr. in I Want to Make Money in the Stock Market : Learn to Begin Investing Without Losing Your Life Savings (2006) by Chris M. Hart, p. 169; this is clearly a statement of his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as quoted in John D. Rockefeller, Jr: A Portrait (1956) by Raymond Blaine Fosdick, p. 189: The only question with wealth is what to do with it. It can be used for evil purposes or it can be an instrumentality for constructive social living.
Misattributed

Question

“We should measure our wealth according to the means we have of satisfying our desires.”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

Il faut compter ses richesses par les moyens qu'on a de satisfaire ses désirs.
Part 2, p. 153; translation p. 83.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)

“As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 29, p. 174
Leviathan (1651)

Nature

“A growing belief that behind every event lay intention—be it an evil thought in the mind of another, or the benevolent whim of a god in the sky—was perhaps inevitable in creatures with an innate understanding of causality. If you were smart enough to make multicomponent tools, you eventually came to believe in gods, the end of all causal chains. There would be costs, of course. In the future, to serve their new gods and shamans, the people would have to sacrifice much: time, wealth, even the right to have children. Sometimes they would even have to lay down their lives. But the payback was that they no longer had to be afraid of dying.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 11 “Mother’s People” section IV (pp. 370-371)

God, Children, People, Understanding

“For this was the real desert where differences of race and colour, of wealth and social standing, are almost meaningless; where coverings of pretence are stripped away and basic truths emerge.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 21.

Truth

“The Sultan himself joined in the pursuit, and went after them as far as the fort called Bhimnagar [Nagarkot, modern Kangra], which is very strong, situated on the promontory of a lofty hill, in the midst of impassable waters. The kings of Hind, the chiefs of that country, and rich devotees, used to amass their treasures and precious jewels, and send them time after time to be presented to the large idol that they might receive a reward for their good deeds and draw near to their God. So the Sultan advanced near to this crow's fruit, ^ and this accumulation of years, which had attained such an amount that the backs of camels would not carry it, nor vessels contain it, nor writers hands record it, nor the imagination of an arithmetician conceive it. The Sultan brought his forces under the fort and surrounded it, and prepared to attack the garrison vigorously, boldly, and wisely. When the defenders saw the hills covered with the armies of plunderers, and the arrows ascending towards them like flaming sparks of fire, great fear came upon them, and, calling out for mercy, they opened the gates, and fell on the earth, like sparrows before a hawk, or rain before lightning. Thus did God grant an easy conquest of this fort to the Sultan, and bestowed on him as plunder the products of mines and seas, the ornaments of heads and breasts, to his heart's content. … After this he returned to Ghazna in triumph; and, on his arrival there, he ordered the court-yard of his palace to be covered with a carpet, on which he displayed jewels and unbored pearls and rubies, shining like sparks, or like wine congealed with ice, and emeralds like fresh sprigs of myrtle, and diamonds in size and weight like pomegranates. Then ambassadors from foreign countries, including the envoy from Tagh^n Khan, king of Turkistin, assembled to see the wealth which they had never yet even read of in books of the ancients, and which had never been accumulated by kings of Persia or of Rum, or even by Karun, who had only to express a wish and Grod granted it.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the capture of Bhimnagar, Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 34-35 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes (971 CE to 1013 CE)

God, Books, Fear, Imagination

“The incentives that people need to work and to find meaning in their lives should be found beyond material wealth and power.”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 10, 2050: The End Of The Growth Era?, p. 390.

People

“They tell me thou art rich, my country: gold
In glittering flood has poured into thy chest;
Thy flocks and herds increase, thy barns are pressed
With harvest, and thy stores can hardly hold
Their merchandise; unending trains are rolled
Along thy network rails of East and West;
Thy factories and forges never rest;
Thou art enriched in all things bought and sold!

But dost thou prosper? Better news I crave.
O dearest country, is it well with thee
Indeed, and is thy soul in health?
A nobler people, hearts more wisely brave,
And thoughts that lift men up and make them free,—
These are prosperity and vital wealth!”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

America's Prosperity (October 1, 1916).

Men, People, Health, Art

“The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.””

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Column, May 14, 2009, "Tincture of Lawlessness" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/14/tincture_of_lawlessness_96482.html at realclearpolitics.com. 2000s

Justice, Freedom, Dependency

“For each individual it is a great advantage to retain the rights over the fruits of his labour even though he must put off the enjoyment of them. His personal wealth is thus increased. For that is what wealth is,—command of the right to postponed consumption.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 5 : A Plan for Deferred Pay, Family, Allowances and a Cheap Ration

Personality

“It would be tedious to dwell upon every striking mark of national decline: some, however, will press themselves forward to particular notice; and amongst them are: that Italian-like effeminacy, which has, at last, descended to the yeomanry of the country, who are now found turning up their silly eyes in ecstacy at a music-meeting, while they should be cheering the hounds, or measuring their strength at the ring; the discouragement of all the athletic sports and modes of strife amongst the common people, and the consequent and fearful increase of those cuttings and stabbings, those assassin-like ways of taking vengeance, formerly heard of in England only as the vices of the most base and cowardly foreigners, but now become so frequent amongst ourselves as to render necessary a law to punish such practices with death; the prevalence and encouragement of a hypocritical religion, a canting morality, and an affected humanity; the daily increasing poverty of the national church, and the daily increasing disposition still to fleece the more than half-shorne clergy, who are compelled to be, in various ways, the mere dependants of the upstarts of trade; the almost entire extinction of the ancient country gentry, whose estates are swallowed up by loan-jobbers, contractors, and nabobs, who, for the far greater part not Englishmen themselves, exercise in England that sort of insolent sway, which, by the means of taxes raised from English labour, they have been enabled to exercise over the slaves of India or elsewhere; the bestowing of honours upon the mere possessors of wealth, without any regard to birth, character, or talents, or to the manner in which that wealth has been acquired; the familiar intercourse of but too many of the ancient nobility with persons of low birth and servile occupations, with exchange and insurance-brokers, loan and lottery contractors, agents and usurers, in short, with all the Jew-like race of money-changers.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 October 1804).

Death, Money, People, Fear

“Capitalism has created its own irrationalities such as a vicious white racism, the tremendous waste associated with advertising, and the irrationality of incredible poverty in the midst of wealth and wastage even inside the biggest capitalist economies, such as that of the United States of America.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 19.

“The Sultan requested the wise men to supply some rules and regulations for grinding down the Hindus, and for depriving them of that wealth and property which fosters disaffection and rebellion. … The people were brought to such a state of obedience that one revenue officer would string twenty khiits, mukaddims, or chaudharis together by the neck, and enforce payment by blows. No Hindu could hold up his head, and in their houses no sign of gold or silver, tonkas or jitals, or of any superfluity was to be seen. These things, which nourish insubordination and rebellion, were no longer to be found. Driven by destitution, the wives of the khuls and mukaddims went and served for hire in the houses of the Musulmans…. The Hindu was to be so reduced as to be left un- able to keep a horse to ride on, to carry arms, to wear fine clothes, or to enjoy any of the luxuries of life. …. I have, therefore, taken my measures, and have made my subjects obedient, so that at my command they are ready to creep into holes like mice. Now you tell me that it is all in accordance with law that the Hindus should be reduced to the most abject obedience. I am an unlettered man, but I have seen a great deal; be assured then that the Hindus will never become submissive and obedient till they are reduced to poverty. I have, therefore, given orders that just sufficient shall be left to them from year to year, of corn, milk, and curds, but that they shall not be allowed to accumulate hoards and property.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi, of Ziauddin Barani in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 182 ff.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Life, Men, People, Law

““I don’t need to be a radical to think that who a dragon is counts more than birth or wealth,” Selendra said, with what dignity she could.
“Why, that’s the very definition of a radical,” he retorted.”

Jo Walton book Tooth and Claw

Source: Tooth and Claw (2003), Chapter 15, section 56 (p. 260)

Birth, Thinking

“His grace,
Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place. ]] From whence with grace and goodness compassed round,
He ruleth, blesseth, keepeth all he wrought,
Above the air, the fire, the sea and ground,
Our sense, our wit, our reason and our thought,
Where persons three, with power and glory crowned,
Are all one God, who made all things of naught,
Under whose feet, subjected to his grace,
Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.This is the place, from whence like smoke and dust
Of this frail world the wealth, the pomp and power,
He tosseth, tumbleth, turneth as he lust,
And guides our life, our death, our end and hour:
No eye, however virtuous, pure and just,
Can view the brightness of that glorious bower,
On every side the blessed spirits be,
Equal in joys, though differing in degree.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Sedea colà, dond'egli e buono e giusto
Dà legge al tutto, e 'l tutto orna e produce
Sovra i bassi confin del mondo angusto,
Ove senso o ragion non si conduce.
E della eternità nel trono augusto
Risplendea con tre lumi in una luce.
Ha sotto i piedi il Fato e la Natura,
Ministri umíli, e 'l moto, e chi 'l misura; E 'l loco, e quella che qual fumo o polve
La gloria di qua giuso e l'oro e i regni,
piace là su, disperde e volve:
Nè, Diva, cura i nostri umani sdegni.
Quivi ei così nel suo splendor s'involve,
Che v'abbaglian la vista anco i più degni;
D'intorno ha innumerabili immortali
Disegualmente in lor letizia eguali.
Canto IX, stanzas 56–57 (tr. Edward Fairfax)
Max Wickert's translation:
He sat where He gives laws both good and just
to all, and all creates, and all sets right,
above the low bounds of this world of dust,
beyond the reach of sense or reason's might;
enthroned upon Eternity, august,
He shines with three lights in a single light.
At His feet Fate and Nature humbly sit,
and Motion, and the Power that measures it,and Space, and Fate who like a powder will
all fame and gold and kingdoms here below,
as pleases Him on high, disperse or spill,
nor, goddess, cares she for our wrath or woe.
There He, enwrapped in His own splendour, still
blinds even worthiest vision with His glow.
All round Him throng immortals numberless,
unequally equal in their happiness.
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Life, Death, God, World

“The more people are free, the greater their human development and national wealth. In short, freedom is the way to economic and social human security.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

Source: The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007), p. 13

People, Way, Freedom

“Zuma … stands in the way towards acquiring land for our people. That is why we will continue attacking him, … We are at war with whites who took our land and we now want it back. We want our land and we want our wealth; if you stand in our way we will crush you, …”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

To about 800 supporters at the Edendale Lay Ecumenical Centre hall on 29 May 2016, Zuma will be forgiven for Nkandla if he acts on land issue: Malema https://www.enca.com/south-africa/zuma-will-be-forgiven-over-nkandla-if-he-acts-on-land-issue-malema (30 May 2016)

War, People, Way