Quotes About Wealth

A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl of society, filling their solitary moments with hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared for their future life together as the novice is prepared for the cloister—by experiencing its utmost contrast.

We get a deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the money to spend.

But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they had probably made all their money out of high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's plan in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the universe.

I fear that in this thing many rich people deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but never using them; making bricks, but never building.

H]e was in another sort of contemplative mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day — that of questioning whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of questioning is sustained by three or five per cent on capital which somebody else has battled for.

his father was in the law:—most exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our never being rich.

When land is gone and money's spent, Then learning is most excellent.

That will help us to understand how the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men whose imaginations, even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a square, and then into a larger square; and every added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, bred a new desire

But at night came his revelry: at night he closed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his gold. Long ago the heap of coins had become too large for the iron pot to hold them, and he had made for them two thick leather bags, which wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent themselves flexibly to every corner. How the guineas shone as they came pouring out of the dark leather mouths!

This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon, noted in the county as a man of profound learning, understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication of his book.

She had a confused, dreamy notion that, if the creditors were all paid, her plate and linen ought to come back to her; but she had an inbred perception that while people owed money they were unable to pay, they couldn't rightly call anything their own.

I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty and affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a woman, and if your marriage with Mr Grandcourt should be happily decided upon, you will probably have an increasing power, both of rank and wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These considerations are something higher than romance.

There's no point in being only the richest person in the graveyard. We must also enjoy ourselves along the way.

Morality of Reward and Punishment plays an enormous role in the conservative worldview. The reward side rules out any government distribution of wealth or benefits that is not based on free market competition, and it makes the right to the disposition of private property absolute; the punishment side focuses the criminal justice system on retribution.

There is an accelerating gap—not just widening but accelerating—between the ultra rich and everyone else. Why? What are the systemic causes and the systemic effects? And is there anything wrong with some people getting that rich and progressively richer over time?

Wealth correlates with certain forms of freedom, like the freedom to acquire goods, or to travel, or freedom of access to certain cultural events, and so on.

there are two fundamentally different kinds of wealth:

up until 1913, most wealth was reinvestment wealth.

in France, a capitalist democracy concerned with égalité, in 1910, 70 percent of the wealth was reinvestment wealth, held by the very wealthy—not productive wealth, distributed over most of the population.

The major thus-far-unframed effect is that runaway exponential accumulation of wealth share tends to kill off the provision of public resources that makes a satisfying and healthy private life possible.

The political effect of runaway wealth is, for example, to cut taxes on the wealthy, taking away funding for the public resources that made that wealth possible in the first place.

The runaway accumulation of wealth for the rich and the runaway loss of wealth for others mean for most people a runaway loss of experiences of personal value—the loss of a meaningful life.

Global warming is the greatest moral issue facing our generation. Accelerating wealth accumulation by the wealthy is a close runner-up. Together, they present a clear and present danger, not just to the United States, but to the world.

Because of the systemic effect of runaway personal and corporate wealth on our politics, both are systemically linked to the threat of global warming to the future of our planet, and to the fundamental split in our politics that is systemically threatening democracy in ways that are not obvious, and are therefore also unframed in public discourse.