WEALTH QUOTES III
quotations about wealth
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1736
Poor is the man who can boast of nothing more than gold.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
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
Get rich or die tryin'.
50 CENT
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Jars neither of wine nor of water shall fail in the houses of the rich.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Kabeiroi
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
As large trees are not the most productive, neither are wealthy men the most liberal.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
There's a common misconception that wealth is a fixed pie, and that therefore for one person to have a lot of wealth requires somebody else to have less (the narrative often goes that wealthy people stole their wealth from poor and middle class people) ... [but] wealth can grow, so that even if someone's percentage of the pie remains the same, they will benefit from that individual slice getting bigger.
IAN TARTT
"Bernie Sanders on the Koch Brothers and Libertarian Ideas", The Libertarian Republic, April 18, 2017
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
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"
The wealthy have nothing left except money.
GEORGE ADE
"The Fable of the Misdirected Sympathy and the Come-Back of the Proud Steam-Fitter", True Bills
Wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
There has always been a display of wealth and always will be, until the depression comes, which it always does. And let me tell you, a display is a good thing. It shows people that you can be successful. It can show you a way of life.
DONALD TRUMP
interview, Playboy, March 1990
Some people aren't meant to be rich. It's like when Babe Ruth was the greatest home run hitter. There had never been anybody like him, and his teammates would ask, "Babe, Babe, how do you hit the long ball?" And he'd say, "I don't know, man. I just swing at it." I see it like that. It's just something you have, something you're born with. Many people don't have the ability to be rich, because they're too lazy or they don't have the desire or the stick-to-itiveness. It's a talent. Some people have a talent for piano. Some people have a talent for raising a family. Some people have a talent for golf. I just happen to have a talent for making money.
DONALD TRUMP
Playboy, October 2004
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
HENRY GEORGE
Progress and Poverty
The effect of the concentration of wealth is to yield concentration of power.
NOAM CHOMSKY
Requiem for the American Dream
Riches naturally gain a man a favourable reception in the world, and give merit a double lustre, when a person is endowed with it; and supply its place, in great measure, when it is absent. Tis wonderful to observe what airs of superiority fools and knaves, with large possessions, give themselves above men of the greatest merit in poverty.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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
The aspiration to wealth is deeply understantable. Getting high income from a good job is all well and good, but because wealth begets more wealth -- people are compensated simply for owning things -- wealth is, potentially, forever. It persists, and spreads through families and dynasties. Wealth can, and often does, endure for generations.
STEVE ROTH
"New Data Reveal the Depressing Truth About How Wealth Is Amassed in America", AlterNet, January 6, 2017