Quotes About Wealth

In his book Oligarchy, American political scientist Jeffrey Winters provides a stunning illustration of just how dire US inequality has become: the average wealth of the richest one hundred American households relative to that of the bottom 90 percent approximates the wealth disparity between a Roman senator and a slave at the height of the Roman Empire.

It was about a class system, the fact that the underclass, Oskar and Albin, always slipped off the roofs of the rich folk.

The fact that a unit of wealth is created today with much fewer workers compared to 10 or 15 years ago is possible because digital businesses have marginal costs that tend towards zero.

Put in simple terms, in a post-pandemic world beset by unemployment, insufferable inequalities and angst about the environment, the ostentatious display of wealth will no longer be acceptable.

The most progressive tax years in US history were 1944 and 1945, with a 94% rate applied to any income above $200,000 (the equivalent in 2009 of $2.4 million). Such top rates, often denounced as confiscatory by those who had to pay them, would not drop below 80% for another 20 years. At the end of World War II, many other countries adopted similar and often extreme tax measures. In the UK during the war, the top income tax rate rose to an extraordinarily stunning 99.25%!

Since the first Industrial Revolution, the average real income per person in OECD economies has increased around 2,900%.

You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. Of course, this kind of meaninglessness might suit this crappy nation. But, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not mount to much. But they fill up our emptiness. That's the only explanation I have.

Furthermore--though it was quite irrelevant now--he had no idea his killer, Kazuo Kiriyama, had, in his mansion that was much larger than Toshinori's home in Shiroiwa-cho, mastered the violin at a level far superior to Toshinori's a long time ago--and then tossed his violin into the trash.

I think Mr. Hawk forgot that he told us to count all our lightbulbs. Because a few days after he told us to do that, he never asked how many lightbulbs we had. But that was okay. Because I kept forgetting to count them anyway. So if he asked, I was going to have to make up a number and say that my house had one thousand three hundred seventy-six lightbulbs. Because I didn't want to look poor.

I would rather be a poor man with honest friends than a rich man with none.

I hope that I'll be hot for a long time so I can make a lot of money, I can retire early, and just travel. Hopefully that will happen.

We cannot deal with the increasing maldistribution of wealth, the increasing alienation of millions, or the lack of a unified purpose and goal by increasing the efficiency of production, increasing the automation of industry, accelerating our technology, or increasing our reliance on the profit motives of multinational corporations.

People who understand interest earn it. People who don't pay it.

Most people fantasize that if they won the lottery, they would quit their jobs and immerse themselves in leisure, play, family, parenthood, occasional thrilling sex; they'd eat when they were hungry and sleep whenever they felt sleepy. Many people, if they won the lottery and got rich quick, would want to live like elephants.

Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.

Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of al evil, the sum of all blessings.

Like Kirk, Viereck was a communitarian who was offended by libertarian romanticizing of the individual pursuit of wealth in an environment of pure laissez-faire.

Don't trust to those who promise to make you rich in a day. Usually they are either mad or rogues!

Non ti fidare, ragazzo mio, di quelli che promettono di farti ricco dalla mattina alla sera. Per il solito, o sono matti o imbroglioni!

La nobiltà non fa per me. La ricchezza la stimo e non la stimo. Tutto il mio piacere consiste nel vedermi servita, desiderata, adorata. Questa è la mia debolezza, e questa è la debolezza di quasi tutte le donne...

El tiempo transcurrió, y mi vida tenía un gran vacío, existía temor en mi corazón. Mis metas en la vida eran tener paz y felicidad y creía que podría alcanzarlas a través del éxito y del reconocimiento en el trabajo. Por lo tanto, trabajé muchísimo creyendo que con la adquisición de bienes y la acumulación de dinero sería finalmente feliz.

Debt is a bottomless sea.

Another great moment was signing my first check, seeing all those zeroes. I'm thinking: Could you spend all those zeroes?

In sum, historical experience already shows that rich countries are not as "special" as some cheerleaders had been arguing, both when it comes to managing capital inflows and especially when it comes to banking crises.