WEALTH quotes
Seek not proud wealth; but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly, yet have not any abstract or friarly contempt of it.
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it.—As long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase they enjoy it.—But when they begin to look around and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters in, is dead in them.—They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand at the end, like the pyramids in the desert, holding only the dust of things.
Many men want wealth, not a competence merely, but a five-story competence, and religion they would like as a sort of lightning-rod to their houses, to ward off, by and by, the bolts of divine wrath.
People who are arrogant on account of their wealth are about equal to the Laplanders, who measure a man's worth by the number of his reindeer.
As riches and favor forsake a man we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor, and conscience, to obtain them: it is to pay so dear for them that the bargain is a loss.
There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.
Worldly wealth is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches, recede in general from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase; as the moon, when she is fullest of light, is farthest from the sun.
The wealth of man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.
An accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. At first he is stunned if the accession be sudden, and is very humble and very grateful. Then he begins to speak a little louder, people think him more sensible, and soon he thinks himself so.
The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.
Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain; the former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring you lasting remorse.
Wealth is like a viper, which is harmless if a man knows how to take hold of it; but if he does not, it will twine round his hand and bite him.
Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.
Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by becoming its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.
He that will not permit his wealth to do any good to others while he is living, prevents it from doing any good to himself when he is dead; and by an egotism that is suicidal and has a double edge, cuts himself off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness hereafter.
In proportion as nations become more corrupt, more disgrace will attach to poverty and more respect to wealth.
Wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, and wants more.
The greatest and the most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least—the privilege of making them happy.
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.
It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave than to expend it like a gentleman.
Abundance is a blessing to the wise; the use of riches in discretion lies; learn this, ye men of wealth—a heavy purse in a fool's pocket is a heavy curse.
To acquire wealth is difficult, to preserve it more difficult, but to spend it wisely most difficult of all.
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth; but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle, at all hazards, this love of power in the people lest civilization should be undone.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; and with them, everything.
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
What real good does an addition to a fortune, already sufficient, procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real enjoyment.
The world is coming, more and more, to the belief that superfluous wealth is a public trust.
Wealth is not of necessity a curse, nor poverty a blessing.—Wholesome and easy abundance is better than either extreme; better for our manhood that we have enough for daily comfort; enough for culture, for hospitality, for Christian charity.—More than this may or may not be a blessing.—Certainly it can be a blessing only by being accepted as a trust.
When I caution you against becoming a miser, I do not therefore advise you to become a prodigal or a spendthrift.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Wealth is nothing in itself; it is not useful but when it departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase. As to corporeal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues of pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury, or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been observed that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment or elevate the imagination, but may, by hiring flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm error and harden stupidity.
Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in its train excessive poverty, as where the sun is highest, the shade is deepest.
The acquisition of wealth is a work of great labor; its possession a source of continual fear; its loss, of excessive grief.
Riches are gotten with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief. The cares of riches lie heavier upon a good man than the inconveniences of an honest poverty.
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, leisure, and liberty.
When a man dies, the people ask, "what property has he left behind him?" But the angels, as they bend over his grave, inquire, "what good deeds hast thou sent on before thee?"
Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.
The million covet wealth, but how few dream of its perils! Few are aware of the extent to which it ministers to the baser passions of our nature; of the selfishness it engenders; the arrogance which it feeds; the self-security which it inspires; the damage which it does to all the nobler feelings and holier aspirations of the heart!
That plenty should produce either covetousness or prodigality is a perversion of providence; and yet the generality of men are the worse for their riches.
To whom can riches give repute, or trust, content, or pleasure, but the good and just?
The greatest humbug in the world is the idea that money can make a man happy. I never had any satisfaction with mine until I began to do good with it.
If thou desire to purchase honor with thy wealth, consider first how that wealth became thine; if thy labor got it, let thy wisdom keep it; if oppression found it, let repentance restore it; if thy parent left it, let thy virtues deserve it; so shall thy honor be safer, better, and cheaper.
Less coin, less care; to know how to dispense with wealth is to possess it.
The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.
A man who possesses wealth possesses power, but it is a power to do evil as well as good.
It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune; and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it.
A great fortune is a great servitude.
If thou art rich thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.
Gold is worse poison to men's souls, doing more murders in this loathsome world, than any mortal drug.
Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.
There is no security against the perils of wealth except in becoming rich toward God.
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
There are not a few who believe in no God but Mammon, no devil but the absence of gold, no damnation but being poor, and no hell but an empty purse; and not a few of their descendants are living still.
Wealth has now all the respect paid to it which is due only to virtue and to talent, but we can see what estimate God places upon it, since he often bestows it on the meanest and most unworthy of all his creatures.
Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because the mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business, which are signs of being weary of themselves.
Many a beggar at the crossway, or gray-haired shepherd on the plain, hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means.
Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
Wealth has seldom been the portion and never the mark to discover good people; but God, who disposeth of all things wisely, hath denied it to many whose minds he has enriched with the greater blessings of knowledge and virtue, as the fairer testimonies of his love to mankind.
Barring some piece of luck I have seen but few men get rich rapidly except by means that would make them writhe to have known in public.
Wealth is not acquired, as many persons suppose, by fortunate speculations and splendid enterprises, but by the daily practice of industry, frugality, and economy. He who relies upon these means will rarely be found destitute, and he who relies upon any other, will generally become bankrupt.
What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously; not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.
Excessive wealth is neither glory nor happiness. There is in a fortune a golden mean which is the appropriate region of virtue and intelligence. Be content with that; and if the horn of plenty overflow, let its droppings fall upon your fellowmen; let them fall like the droppings of honey in the wilderness to cheer the faint and weary pilgrim.
Much learning shows how little mortals know; much wealth, how little worldings can enjoy.
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