Quotes About Wealth

We think of GDP as a measure of the wealth that a country generates each year. But from a thermodynamic point of view, it is more a measure of the temporary energy value embedded in the goods or services produced at the expense of the diminution of the available energy reserves and an accumulation of entropic waste. Since

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.

a pound or two of short dips; a crown, set with diamonds and rubies each as big as a duck's egg; a cradle — empty, an affecting sight; carpets, kettles, and pots; a stretcher; a chariot; a bunch of carrots; a costermonger's barrow; banners; a leg of mutton, and a baby. Everything, in short, that could possibly be wanted, either in a palace or a garret, a farmyard or a battle-field.

No, what was said in his case was that he, who didn't care for carved oak, should have his drawing-room panelled with it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be the rule of this world. Each person has what he doesn't want, and other people has what he does want. (Chapter VI)

As our means increase, so do our desires;and we ever stand midway between the two.

It seems to be the rule of the world. Each person has what he doesn't want, & other people have what he does what.

No, what was sad in his case was that he, who didn't care for carved oak, should have his drawing-room panelled with it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it.  It seems to be the rule of this world. 

It could be done with a little good will all round," he continued, "and nine men out of every ten would be the better off. But they won't even let you explain. Their newspapers shout you down. It's such a damned fine world for the few: never mind the many.

The princess wrote to her mother of her feelings about these activities: " … if one never sees poverty and always lives in that cold circle of Court people, one's good feelings dry up, and I feel the want of going about and doing the little good that is in my power." She added that "I am sure you will understand this.

I read somewhere that 77 percent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 percent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.

The church always overwhelmed me. And yet it was one of the many houses of God scattered all over the world. God did not live in any of them, but it was assumed for some reason that He was present in all of them at once. He was like the unexpected guest for whom the wealthier farmers always kept an additional place at their table.

Hell, it took only your first day in a Montana flop or standing over your mother's unmarked grave to know that equal was the one thing all men were not. A few lived like kings, and the rest hugged the dirt until it cracked open and took them home.

Listen," Richard says, "unless you're about to inherit some money, what we're talking about here is irreversible, fatal. You have fiscal Ebola, Matt. You are bleeding out through your nose and your mouth and your eye sockets, from your financial asshole." See! Fiscal Ebola? My financial asshole is bleeding? This was exactly why I started poetfolio.com; there are money poets everywhere.

Another part of Bit's unifying urban theory is sprinklers, that you can gauge a neighborhood's wealth by the way people water. If every house has an automatic system, you're looking at a six-figure mean. If the majority lug hoses around, it's more lower-middle class. And if they don't bother with the lawns... well, that's the sort of shitburg where Bit and Julie always lived, except for that little place they rented in Wenatchee the summer Bit worked at the orchard.

How much money do we pay for an education that will allow us to loop our necktie the same way each morning, to be given a regular parking spot to park our BMW every day, to buy a summer home so that even our vacations become routine? We are drilled in this unending sameness in high school, and only the insane and the inspired ever get past it.

All people, except this rich cream, living and scraping and fighting and dying, and for what, nothing, the cold millions with no chance in this world.

This was the crazy thing about wealth: You only had it if you didn't use it, but if you didn't use it, there was no value in having it.

that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.

I hate the rich snots here with a fervent passion I usually reserve only for dental work and my father.

Success by the laws of competition signifies a victory over others by obtaining the direction and profits of their work. This is the real source of all great riches.

The most lucrative work I have done is presenting primetime TV shows. I do not know what other people earn but a six-figure salary is not uncommon.

It's so easy for me to fall back into depression. I think it comes with having money. I don't have to work. I could be sitting bored and depressed at home with a bag on my head.

Production functions involving only land, labor and capital... never work and never explain economic development.

Either make your money work for you or you will always have to work for your money.