quotations about wealth
As the cream abandons the milk from which it took its life, and rises to the top and rides there, so men, because they are richer than those around about them, separate themselves, and all mankind below them they regard as skim milk.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
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
Wealth is an engine that can be used for power, if you are an engineer; but to be tied to the fly wheel of an engine is rather a misfortune.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
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
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
Behind the deceptive words designed to entice people into supporting violence -- words like democracy, freedom, self-defense, national security -- there is the reality of enormous wealth in the hands of a few, while billions of people in the world are hungry, sick, homeless.
HOWARD ZINN
preface, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
It is a shame for a man to be a millionaire in possessions if he is not also a millionaire in beneficence.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Great wealth may be to its owner a blessing or a curse. Alas! I fear it is too often the latter. It hardens the heart, blunts the finer susceptibilities, and transforms into a fiend what under more favourable circumstances might have been a human being.
ARNOLD BENNETT
A Question of Sex
A rich man is one who isn't afraid to ask the salesperson to show him something cheaper.
JACK BENNY
The Jack Benny Program
There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.
JOHN LOCKE
Letters on Toleration
For having wealth and wherewithal to "do good", if you do it not, talk not of faith, for you have no faith in you.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
There is no road to wealth so easy and respectable as that of matrimony.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Doctor Thorne
Wealth has never the value to its possessor as it is supposed to have by an avaricious admirer.
ANTHONY LISLE
The Westminster Review, January 1914
Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
letter to Ernest Hemingway, August 1936
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
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
If you do not appreciate what you now have you will never appreciate what you will have.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon