quotations about wealth
Wealth is the ability to consume, nothing more and nothing less.
TIM WORSTALL
"Zuckerberg's Rise Up The Billionaires List Is A Sign Of Decreasing, Not Increasing, Inequality", Forbes, February 3, 2016
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
Like most children of affluence, I grew up with a distinct sense that my parents were only tolerably well off. This is because children always compare their families with wealthier ones, never with poorer. I thought I knew perfectly well what it meant to be rich in New York. If you were rich, you lived in a house with a pompous beaux-arts facade and kept a butler and gave children's parties with spun sugar on the ice cream and little cups of real silver as game prizes. If you were not rich you lived in a brownstone with Irish maids who never called you Master Louis and parents who hollered up and down the stairs instead of ringing bells.
LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS
A Writer's Capital
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
Wealth just keeps growing for the 62 richest people in the world. Collectively, this ultra-wealthy group controls $1.76 trillion, which is about the cumulative worth of the poorer half of the world's population, or around 3.5 billion people. And since 2010, wealth has become more and more concentrated in favor of the richest of the rich while those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder have seen their positions worsen.
GILLIAN B. WHITE
"Where Is All the World's Money Going?", The Atlantic, January 19, 2016
Desire may reflect anything from a desperate need to a transitory want. In either case, wealth is anything that satisfies the craving. It applies balm to the itch. It may, in fact, gratify more than one desire at a time. We may want a touch of beauty on our living room wall. A painting, even an inexpensive reproduction, may provide a small surge of pleasure every time we pause to look at it. The same work of art may simultaneously fulfill our desire to impress visitors with our splendid good taste, or our social importance. But wealth can also be a bank account, a bicycle, a hoard of food or a health insurance policy.
ALVIN TOFFLER
Revolutionary Wealth
Wisdom ruleth in counsel -- so do riches.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Those that say they despise riches are saints or liars.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
We never get far from wealth and all of its masks when we deal with power.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
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
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
Like spiritual growth, building wealth is a process. You can't expect to invest today and become a millionaire tomorrow, it takes time.... Become responsible financially, live within your means and start saving money. It's not easy and you may have some setbacks, but if you want to have a secure financial future you have no choice.
AARON KATSMAN
"Your Investments: The Omerand Your Wealth", Jerusalem Post, April 13, 2017
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
But I have wealth he cannot touch,
Spoiler of kings!
For I have tasted agony
And worn joy's wings.
KARLE WILSON BAKER
"The Highwayman", Burning Bush
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
So our Lord God commonly gives riches to those gross asses to whom He vouchsafes nothing else.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, Tischreden oder Colloquia
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
As soon as I find myself in the presence of a rich man, I cannot help looking upon him as an exceptional and beautiful being, as a sort of marvellous divinity, and, in spite of myself, surmounting my will and my reason, I feel rising, from the depths of my being, toward this rich man, who is very often an imbecile, and sometimes a murderer, something like an incense of admiration. Is it not stupid? And why? Why?
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid