Quotes About Wealth

forceful men of the people went into politics, their hearts bleeding for the wrongs of the poor; so they collected votes and built up a political machine, which they used to blackmail their way to fortune.

Even the Catholics, the most devout among them who wore scapulars and said their prayers, were strongly tinged with Pink. They would cite the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII dealing with the rights of labor and the evils of inequality of wealth—those same authoritative documents which F.D.R. kept on his desk to read to archbishops who came to protest against this or that New Deal extremism.

I have had opportunity to observe the effects of inherited wealth, and for the average young person it is a sentence to futility and boredom. It cuts the mainspring of activity; the person no longer has to do anything, and so he doesn't, and if he tries, he fails nine times out of ten. You at this moment are providing the strongest incentive to labor that I have ever had in my life.

The excessively rich were as shy as wild birds; everybody was hunting them and they took wing at the least hint of danger. They were abnormally sensitive and had to be handled as if they were made of wet tissue paper. They would absorb flattery like sponges—but only that subtle kind which assured them that they were above flattery.

The more things had cost the better they were and the more they were talked about, which was the best of all. "Three million dollars!" people would say about the palace, and their voices would be lowered as if they were speaking of the dwelling place of deity.

A family was supposed to be living there, but probably, like most rich people, they were away from home most of the time. Lanny had observed that the more money people had, the harder they found it to escape boredom.

The best that anyone could do for the present was to build him a not too costly home in some part of the earth where there was no gold, oil, coal, or other mineral treasure, and which was not near a disputed boundary or strategic configuration of land or water. There with reasonable luck he might have peace within his own walls, and perhaps think some thoughts which might be helpful to a hate-tormented world.

The politicians and generals and kings lived in the limelight and enjoyed the glory, while the men of money stayed in the background and gave the orders, politely when possible, but making sure they would be obeyed.

The world had always done its utmost to spoil Lanny Budd, and his conscience gave him no rest about it; the more luxury he enjoyed, the more he hated the system of exploitation on which that luxury was based.

We grant that American citizens who have millions of dollars have a right to use them to poison the public mind; but surely we don't have to grant the right of foreigners to come in and intrigue against us.

Currency inflation is to the government what as anesthetic is to the surgeon; it provides an easy and painless way of separating the rich from their savings and reducing the wages of all employed persons in the community.

When the rich go over-board, politically speaking, they go all the way and with all their clothes on. They have been used to having what they want, and patience is apt to be the least of their virtues. Bessie Budd had joined the Communist Party, and she followed the Party line, keeping her eyes fixed upon it so closely that she couldn't even see how it wobbled, and would be greatly irritated if you called her attention to the chart.

might mean not merely a big order for planes; it might mean new expansion, fresh capital—for these men had gold, all the gold of the Banque de France, hidden in the most marvelous vaults in the world, underneath the sidewalks of Paris. They didn't own it, of course, but they could cause it to be expended by politicians whose careers had been financed by them and whose future was theirs to determine.

They had let these officials into their companies, and thus obtained permission to ship their wealth to their banks in North Africa. Lanny heard about it from one source after another, and some said that ten billion francs had come to Algiers, and others said twenty billion, and all agreed that it was still coming.

Cannes was thought of as a playground for the rich; a city of lovely villas and gardens, a paradise of fashionable elegance. Few stopped to realize what a mass of labor was required to maintain that cleanliness and charm: not merely the servants who dwelt on the estates, but porters and truckdrivers, scrubwomen and chambermaids, kitchen-workers, food-handlers; and scores of obscure occupations which the rich never heard about. These people were housed in slum warrens

He had managed to get the good things in life, somehow—but why at least could he not go off and enjoy them, without coming to taunt the poor with their misfortune?

One might look at a Rembrandt picture, or hear a Beethoven symphony, without depriving others of the privilege; but one couldn't become an oil king without taking oil away from others.

All the losses came back on those who had fixed incomes and salaries; the only gainers were speculators, and those fortunate few whose incomes were in dollars.

Very few towns, and rivers mostly dry beds; a land of which vast tracts were kept for grazing by wealthy owners who didn't want settlers and money so much as they wanted space and fresh air. Only a land-values tax could have reached them, and there could be no such tax because they owned the newspapers and controlled both political machines

All German science, all German discipline, all German wealth, were being directed to this end, so that when Der Tag came along, the German army should have an air cover to protect it, first to drive its enemy out of the skies and then to crush his defenses and enable the Wehrmacht to march where it would.

These were the men of money, masters of the life of France. They told the workers where to live and what work to do; they told the editors what to publish, and thus told the French public what to believe; they told the politicians how to vote, which meant telling the police whom to arrest and the soldiers whom to shoot.

forty thousand of them. It was a

Never by chance will you say anything about there being starvation outside the gates; and if the owner takes you to the Episcopal Church or the Catholic, you will not quote what you hear about laying up for yourselves treasures on earth, or about how "the Lord hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

There will be others like him," replied Lanny, "unless we solve the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty. The German middle classes, the little men like Hitler, were being wiped out, and he offered a millennium, also a scapegoat, the Jews. When he got the votes, he took them to the big industrialists and sold them for more campaign funds.