quotations about wealth
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
Jars neither of wine nor of water shall fail in the houses of the rich.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Kabeiroi
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"
As large trees are not the most productive, neither are wealthy men the most liberal.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Get rich or die tryin'.
50 CENT
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
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
Wealth--the most excellent of all gods.
ARISTOPHANES
Plutus
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
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
Great wealth and great poverty will disintegrate a nation in about the same time.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
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
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
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
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
If you do not appreciate what you now have you will never appreciate what you will have.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
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 secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
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
Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
letter to Ernest Hemingway, August 1936