quotations about wealth
As a rule, the most biting and bitter of the castigators of wealth are those who have signally failed in the pursuit of it.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays, vol. II
There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.
O. HENRY
"The Complete Life of John Hopkins"
Wealth in the modern world does not come merely from individual effort; it results from a combination of individual effort and of the manifold uses to which the community puts that effort. The individual does not create the product of his industry with his own hands; he utilizes the many processes and forces of mass production to meet the demands of a national and international market. Therefore, in spite of the great importance in our national life of the efforts and ingenuity of unusual individuals, the people in the mass have inevitably helped to make large fortunes possible. Without mass cooperation great accumulations of wealth would be impossible save by unhealthy speculation.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Message to Congress on Tax Revision, June 19, 1935
Wealth sticks out in our society because to have wealth is to use it. Just piling up numbers in an account doesn't do anyone any good. To have money is to spend money.
MICHAEL SWICKARD
"Look at the wealth effect in politics to catch scummy behavior", NMPolitics, January 25, 2016
It's the American dream. A third of Americans think they'll be rich someday. More than half of 18-29 year olds think they will be. Less than 5% actually make it. And many of those do it the old-fashioned way: they inherit it.
STEVE ROTH
"New Data Reveal the Depressing Truth About How Wealth Is Amassed in America", AlterNet, January 6, 2017
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth -- the soil and the labourer.
KARL MARX
Capital
Wealth is a tide which flows into one place by ebbing from another.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
A rich man is an honest man--no thanks to him; for he would be a double knave, to cheat mankind when he had no need of it: he has no occasion to press upon his integrity, nor so much as to touch upon the borders of dishonesty.
DANIEL DEFOE
Robinson Crusoe
Wisdom ruleth in counsel -- so do riches.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Flying under the radar also means you don't have to keep up with the Joneses. If people don't realize you're wealthy, they won't expect you to buy a bigger house, drive a nicer car, or shop at expensive stores. The pressure is off, so you are free to make whatever financial decisions are best for you.
SARAH WINFREY
"5 Reasons Stealth Wealth Is the Best Wealth", WiseBread, March 24, 2017
Luxury is artificial poverty; and no man has so much care as he who endeavours after the most riches.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Those that say they despise riches are saints or liars.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to leave without asking.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Old Gorgon Graham
The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
As sages of all times assert;
The happy man's without a shirt.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Be Merry Friends
Real estate is at the core of almost every business, and it's certainly at the core of most people's wealth. In order to build your wealth and improve your business smarts, you need to know about real estate.
DONALD TRUMP
Think Like a Billionaire
The great thing about having been poor is how liberated it makes you if you eventually become rich. There's nothing like the knowledge that you don't need money to survive. That the money cushion you lie on every night doesn't have to be three feet thick, and you can still get to sleep.
BILL MAHER
"The Great Thing About Having Been Poor", HuffPost, March 1, 2012
Once more, in the matter of wealth: if thou throw thine all on a chance,
Men will come around thee, and wait, and watch the turning of the wheel;
And if, in the lottery of life, thou draw a splendid prize,
What foresight hadst thou, and skill! yea, what enterprize and wisdom!
But, if it fall out against thee, and thou fail in thy perilous endeavour,
Behold, the simple did sow, and hath reaped the right harvest of his folly.
And the world will be gladly excused, nor will reach out a finger to help;
For why should this speculative dullard be a whirlpool to all around him?
Go to, let him sink by himself: we knew what the end of it would be.
For the man hath missed his mark, and his fellows look no further.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue, the acquisition of wealth as the single worthy aim of life.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
"A Chapter of Erie", North American Review, July 1869
Friends mostly test other's prosperity by their own; all wealth is but comparison of wealth.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
So our Lord God commonly gives riches to those gross asses to whom He vouchsafes nothing else.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, Tischreden oder Colloquia