quotations about wealth
Poor is the man who can boast of nothing more than gold.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Thomas
Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
Wealth which breeds idleness ... is only a sort of human oyster-bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worm's banquet.
HORACE MANN
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. And it will leave you unfulfilled.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, July 12, 2006
Wealth is useless on the day of wrath, but virtue saves from death.
PROVERBS 11:4
Nought is there in wealth
That serves as bulwark 'gainst the subtle stealth
Of Destiny and Doom.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
A man can hardly be said to have made a fortune if he does not know how to enjoy it.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Competition, founded upon the conflicting interests of individuals, is in reality far less productive of wealth and enterprise than co-operation, involving though it does the constant apparent sacrifice of the individual to the common interests.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
A City Set on a Hill
Any man can become rich who is base enough to keep a brothel, a gin palace, or a gambling house.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
You obviously don't know what an Old Man of the Sea great wealth is. It is not a fat purse and time to spend it. Its owner finds himself beset on every side, at every hour, wherever he goes, by persistent pleaders, like beggars in Bombay, each demanding that he invest or give away part of his wealth. He becomes suspicious of honest friendship--indeed honest friendship is rarely offered him; those who could have been his friends are too fastidious to be jostled by beggars, too proud to risk being mistaken for one.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
Stranger in a Strange Land
Wealth in activity--capital with all its friction--is far safer than invested wealth lying dead.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A common misconception about building wealth is that it's only possible with a high income. While a growing income obviously makes things easier, the preconception that it's absolutely necessary ends up missing the core idea of wealth accumulation. A bigger paycheck helps only if that money is being used optimally. We all know of various celebrities that have squandered millions of dollars and declared bankruptcy because of poor spending habits. Instead, building wealth is about making more than you consume, and then saving the difference. This means that the equation can be tackled on both sides of the spectrum, and that almost anyone can take steps to be more financially secure if they make smarter choices with their expenses.
MIKE MOZART
"Is it Possible to Build Wealth on Minimum Wage?", Equities, April 4, 2017
The poor know well what wealth can do--
The rich their happiest chances miss;
We sit too close to grasp the view,
Or stand too far to feel the bliss.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"Outside"
In my seasoned experience as a grouchy broke person, and my many years of coaching countless people on the topic of wealth, I've discovered that few things make people want to fight, vomit, or ask for their money back more than telling them that one must be rich to be successful and complete.
JEN SINCERO
You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth
Small aid is wealth for daily gladness; once a man be done with hunger, rich and poor are all as one.
EURIPIDES
Electra
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"The Rich Boy"
Wealth--the most excellent of all gods.
ARISTOPHANES
Plutus
While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
Titles, riches, and fine houses signify no more to the making of one man better than another, than the finer saddle to the making the better horse.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine