Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
—Adam Smith (1723–90) Scottish Philosopher, Economist
We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.
—Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) French Fashion Designer
Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Let me gain by you, and no matter whether you love me or not.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
A little beauty is preferable to much wealth.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (c.1213–91) Persian Poet
He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away “unwept, unhonored, and unsung,” no matter to what uses he leave the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in its train excessive poverty, as where the sun is highest, the shade is deepest.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Man was born to be rich, or, grows rich by the use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out brute labor.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Money is always on its way somewhere. What you do with it while it is in your keeping and the direction you send it in say much about you. Your treatment of and respect for money, how you make it, and how you spend it, reflect your character.
—Gary Ryan Blair
The smell of profit is clean and sweet, whatever the source.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
When the anger of the gods is incurred, wealth or power only bring more devastating punishment.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
You can’t take it with you when you go.
—Common Proverb
Another advantage of being rich is that all your faults are called eccentricities.
—Anonymous
THERE was a man in our town, and he was wondrous rich;
He gave away his millions to the colleges and sich;
And people cried: The hypocrite! He ought to understand
The ones who really need him are the children of this land.
When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick,
And writers said: He thinks about the drooping girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?
There was a man in our town who said that he would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair,
And people said: Oh, isn’t he the shrewd and foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free advertisement.
There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.
—Franklin P. Adams (1881–1960) American Columnist, Radio Personality, Author
There are two times in a man’s life when he shouldn’t speculate: when he can afford to and when he can’t.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Adulation is the ever ready attendant to great wealth.
—Unknown
If any man is rich and powerful he comes under the law of God by which the higher branches must take the burnings of the sun, and shade those that are lower; by which the tall trees must protect the weak plants beneath them.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
No one has ever said it, but how painfully true it is that the poor have us always with them.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
The main source of our wealth is goodness. The affections and the generous qualities that God admires in a world full of greed.
—Alfred A. Montapert (1906–97) American Engineer, Philosopher
In the practical as in the theoretic life, the man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing, whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
Although they posses enough, and more than enough still they yearn for more.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist