Wealth

Sourced

• "It is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle."
  • Jesus Christ, The New Testament, Luke 18:18

• "We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."
  • George Bernard Shaw, Candida, I

• "Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream."
  • William Cowper, The Task, III, ‘The Garden’, 263

• "Penny wise, pound foolish."
  • Robert Burton (1577-1640), Anatomy of Melancholy, ‘Democritus to the reader’

• "Riches are a good handmaiden, but the worst mistress."
  • Francis Bacon, De dignitate et augmentis scientiarium, Part I. vi. 3. 6

• "The rich are the scum of the earth in every country."
  • G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English author and mystery novelist, The Flying Inn (1914)

• "There is no Wealth but Life."
  • John Ruskin, Unto This Last, IV (1860)

• "If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed."
  • Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace

• "Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it."
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736 edition)

• "That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."
  • Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 11th March 1856

• The wealth ov a person should be estimated, not bi the amount he haz, but bi the use he makes ov it.
  • Josh Billings, His Works, Complete (1873)

• "In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself."
  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835-40

• "In truth, poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."
  • Walter Bagehot, The waverly Novels (1858)

• "I'm a very large creator of wealth, I like that. I like finding new companies and investing in them very early and seeing an enormous amount of wealth being generated."
  • Alberto Vilar, From his interview in The Sunday Times, 19th March 2000.

• "Technology is begining to differentiate the haves and the have nots."
  • Michael Capellas, Chief Executive, Compac Computers. As he stated on The Money Programme, BBC 2, 6th February 2000

• "The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away “unwept, unhonoured and insung” no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him."
  • Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays (1900)

• "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Rich Boy’, All the Sad Young Men (1926)

• "I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it."
  • Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), American writer, editor and poet. From her interview for The Paris Review, reprinted in Writers at Work, First Series (1958)

• "No rich man is a patriot, no rich man is a friend. They have all only got one fatherland—the Ritz-Carlton; and one friend—the mistress they’re promising to divorce their wives for."
  • Christina Stead, House of All Nations, pub. by Simon & Schuster (1938)

• "Few rich men own their property. The property owns them."
  • Robert Ingersoll, Address to the McKinley League, New York, 29th October 1896

• The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.
  • P. T. Barnum, ‘Preserve Your Integrity’, The Art of Money Getting (1880)

• "To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober."
  • Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946), American essayist and aphorist. ‘In the World’, Afterthoughts (1931)

• "It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people."
  • Logan Pearsall Smith, ‘In the World’, Afterthoughts (1931)

• "Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing."
  • Samuel Smiles, 19th C Scottish author and reformer. ‘Money: Its Use and Abuse’, Self-Help (1856), Ch. 10

• "Is passing large sums of wealth on to your children good for them or right for society?"
  • Bill Gates, in his BBC television interview with Jeremy Paxman

• "I'm just a poor millionaire."
  • Delia Smith, [From her television interview at Norwich City football Club, concerniong her ownership of the club]

• "I wonder why rich people always grow fat—I suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them."
  • Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)

• "Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down."
  • As stated by Herman Blume, as played by Bill Murray in the film Rushmore, 1998

• "People yelled “Show me the money!” and screamed it at me all the time. It was a catchphrase everybody was hungry for. It was accepted because people think that when they look at professional actors and the obscene amounts of money they get. This was making fun of that. It wasn’t mean-spirited."
  • Cuba Gooding Jr, American actor. From his interview in The Express (UK) newspaper, 18th September 1999

• "WEALTH. Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband."
  • H. L. Mencken (1880–1956), American journalist and critic. From ‘maxims’ section in, A Book of Burlesques (1920)

• "People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative."
  • Martina Navratilova, Czechoslovakian-American tennis player. Quotation from her autobiography, Martina (1985)

• "Wealth doesn’t confer automatic happiness, whereas people who are not wealthy but very much want to be, believe it will confer almost automatic and unrelieved happiness. This is not true. Part of the reason is that to get the wealth you have to behave in a way that will definitely not make you happy. It’s a beautiful circularity."
  • Felix Dennis, British magazine publisher, entrepreneur and author. From his interview with David Woodward for Director Magazine, September 2006.

• "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where theives break through and steal:
  But lay up for your selves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where theives do not break through nor steal.
  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
  • The New Testament, Matthew 6:19–21

• "Good thoughts his only friends;
  His wealth a well-spent age;
  The earth his sober inn,
  And quiet pilgrimage."
  • Thomas Campion, poet (1567-1620), The Man Upright of Life

• "Those that have wealth must be watchful and wary,
  Power, alas! naught but misery brings!"
  • Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839), English popular songwriter. I’d be a Butterfly

• "Though they suffer no restriction of choice, in reality even multi-millionaires soon reach the outer limits of purely personal gratification—which should be some satisfaction to the rest of us."
  • Alan Whicker, British interviewer, journalist and author. Within Whicker’s World (1982)

• "The rich live the same all over the world."
  • Christian Dior (1905-1957), French fashion designer. Quoted by Stanley Marcus in the book, Christian Dior, The Man who made the World Look New, by Marie-France Pochna (1996)

• "I’m not technically rich, but I do have a lot of shit that I don’t need, and I refuse to share with others."
  • Maria Bamford, American stand-up commedian. Quote from: The Now Show,a radio comedy show on BBC Radio 4, 2006.

• "Of a rich man who was niggardly he [Bion] said, “That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him.”"
  • Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book IV. ‘Bion’, iii.

• "The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from it."
  • Seneca, On Tranquility

• "It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse."
  • Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Henry David Thoreau’, Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882)

• "If I was as rich as Rockefeller I’d be richer than Rockefeller, because I’d do a bit of window cleaning on the side."
  • Ronnie Barker (1929-2005), British actor and comedian. Quotation from The Two Ronnies television series

• Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
  • Rex Stout, as stated by Nero Wolfe in The Red Box (1937)

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.
  • Francis Bacon, p. 521.

• There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them.
  • Matthew Henry, p. 521.

• Get rich, if you will — you take great risks. But Christianity does not say to any man, " You must be worth only so much, extend your business only so far." It says, " Use your riches for the glory of God." If they once usurp His place, woe to you!
  • Herrick Johnson, p. 521.

• If by the consecration of my earthly possessions to some extent, I can make the Christian character practically more lovely, and illustrate, in my own case, that the highest enjoyments here are promoted by the free use of the good things intrusted to us, what so good use can I make of them?
  • Amos Lawrence, p. 521.

• Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard.
  • R. S. Storrs, p. 522.

• If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in perdition; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion — your all-sufficient and everlasting portion—peace and quietness and rest in Christ.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 522.

• But Christian faith knows that wealth means responsibility, and that responsibility may come to mean only heavy arrears of sin.
  • H. P. Liddon, p. 522.

• Worldly wealth is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase.
  • Burton, p. 522.

• O, my God! withhold from me the wealth to which tears and sighs and curses cleave. Better none at all than wealth like that.
  • Christian Scriver, p. 522.

• How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns!
  • Thomas Brooks, p. 523.

• Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's word? Yea, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom? Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore our Lord God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom He gives nothing else.
  • Martin Luther, p. 523.

• The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.
  • Augustine of Hippo, p. 523.

• It is not the fact that a man has riches which keeps him from the kingdom of heaven, but the fact that riches have him.
  • J. Caird, p. 523.

Unsourced

• "A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money." – W.C. Fields

• "Money can't buy me love." – The Beatles, (pop song)

• "The Rich aren’t like us—they pay less taxes." – Peter De Vries

• "To turn $100 into $110 is work. To turn $100 million into $110 million is inevitable." – Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

• "Wealth and poverty are different worlds on the same planet." – Leonid S. Sukhorukov

• "Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness." – William Godwin

• "The richest man is the one who feels rich enough." – Leonid S. Sukhorukov

• "I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me honey, rich is better." – Sophie Tucker

• "This court is no respecter of wealth or other claims of immunity!" - Kenesaw Mountain Landis

• "The only question with wealth is what you do with it." – John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

• "Inherited wealth is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality." – William Kissam Vanderbilt II

• "Wealth does not corrupt nor does it enoble." – Robert Coles

• "It is better to cry in a Rolls Royce than to be happy on a bicycle." – Swami Raj

• "It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, as long as you’ve got money." – Joe E. Lewis (1902-1971), American comedian and singer

• "The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it." – Comte de Rivarol (1753-1801)

• "Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men." – Charles Caleb Colton

• "Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, it means leisure, it means liberty." – James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

• "The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth." – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

• "Wealth is a very dangerous inheritance, unless the inheritor is trained to active benevolence." – Charles Simmons

• "Riches may not make you any friends, but they greatly increase the class and variety of your enemies." - Auric Goldfinger

Anonymous

• "A wealthy man always has followers." – Anonymous

• "If thou goest to a foreign country, do not alight at a rich man's house." – Anonymous

• "If thou art poor, do not make a rich man thy friend." – Anonymous

• "The rich may go down and the poor up, but it still doesn’t end up even." – Anonymous

• "It is better to be poor and live long than rich and die young." – Anonymous

• "On top of Nob Hill, a man’s neighbours count his carriages, not his expenses." – Anonymous

• "Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse." – Anonymous

• "For one rich man that is content there are a hundred that aren’t." – Anonymous

• "For every rich man who is happy there are a lot more poor men who aren’t." – Anonymous

• "We can’t all be rich, who’d do the work?" – Anonymous

• "A rich man and his dough, make bread." – Anonymous

• "Property is the prop of life." – Anonymous

• "Wealth is easy; poverty is a shame." – Anonymous

• "Knowledge makes one laugh but wealth makes one dance." – English proverb

• "Want of wit is worse than want of wealth." – English 18th C. proverb

• "Wealth is best known by want." – English 18th C. proverb

• "A good wife and health is a man's best wealth." – English 18th C. proverb

• "Wealth is like rheum, it falls on the weakest parts." – English 17th C. proverb

• "Riches serve a wise man but command a fool." – Old French proverb

• "If rich people could hire other people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living." – Yiddish proverb.

• "If you rub elbows with a rich man, you rub a hole in your sleeve." – Yiddish proverb.

• "The rich may go down and the poor up, but it still doesn’t end up even." – Yiddish proverb