Quotes About Wealth

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have

the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched.

Most men never appear to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have.

There is no happiness in having and getting, but only in giving . . . half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness.

those whose indigent circumstances make such an eleemosynary abode convenient to them, and who are therefore less welcome to a great man's table because they stand in need of it.

I had rather enjoy my own mind than the fortune of another man. What is the poor pride arising from a magnificent house, a numerous equipage, a splendid table, and from all the other advantages or appearances of fortune, compared to the warm, solid content, the swelling satisfaction, the thrilling transports, and the exulting triumphs, which a good mind enjoys, in the contemplation of a generous, virtuous, noble, benevolent action?

He had indeed conversed so entirely with money, that it may almost be doubted whether he imagined there was any other thing really existing in the world; this at least may be certainly averred, that he firmly believed nothing else to have any real value.

Money is the fruit of evil as often as the root of it.

In fact, it is inconceivable what sums may be collected by starving only, and how easy it is for a man to die rich if he will but be contented to live miserable.

Real wealth, of course, consists in what is produced and consumed: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in.

We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces.

Saving" in short, in the modern world, is only another form of spending.

heavy unemployment means that fewer goods are produced, that the nation is poorer, and that there is less for everybody.

The thing so great that "private capital could not have built it" has in fact been built by private capital—the capital that was expropriated in taxes

Inflation itself is a form of taxation. It is perhaps the worst possible form, which usually bears hardest on those least able to pay.

The question is not whether we wish to see everybody as well off as possible. Among men of good will such an aim can be taken for granted. The real question concerns the proper means of achieving it. And in trying to answer this we must never lose sight of a few elementary truisms. We cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces.

The thing so great that "private capital could not have built it" has in fact been built by private capital—the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes).

what is really being lent is not money, which is merely the medium of exchange, but capital.

For the amount of real capital at any moment (as distinguished from monetary tokens run off on a printing press) is limited. What is put into the hands of B cannot be put into the hands of A.

Philip Wicksteed, The Common Sense of Political Economy, 1911; John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, 1899; Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, 1888; Karl Menger, Principles of Economics, 1871; W. Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 1871; John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, 1848; David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817; and Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776.

The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs.

la inflación es un impuesto oculto que redistribuye la renta desde una parte de la sociedad hacia el Gobierno

no cabe distribuir más riqueza que la creada; no es posible, a la larga, pagar al conjunto de la mano de obra más de lo que produce.

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.