quotations about wealth
The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
letter to Ernest Hemingway, August 1936
Wealth has never the value to its possessor as it is supposed to have by an avaricious admirer.
ANTHONY LISLE
The Westminster Review, January 1914
I account the office of benefactor, or almoner, to which God appoints all those whom he has favored with wealth, one of the most honorable and delightful in the world. He never institutes a channel for the passage of His bounties that those bounties do not enrich and beautify.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND
Gold-Foil
Being wealthy and being successful and being able to run government are not synonymous.
AMEYA PAWAR
"Gubernatorial candidate targets 'wealth worship'", Chicago Sun-Times, April 9, 2017
I call this inequality toxic because, over time and generations, it builds upon itself. Wealth and race map together to consolidate historic injustices, which now weave through neighborhoods and housing markets, educational institutions, and labor markets, creating an increasingly divided opportunity structure. So long as we have entrenched wealth inequality intertwined with racial inequality, we cannot even begin to bend the arc toward equity.
THOMAS M. SHAPIRO
"How Did America's Wealth Inequality Reach This Level of Toxic?", AlterNet, April 11, 2017
I spend my life hustling for small money, staying one step ahead of de police. But I will not do dat all my life. You see, I done read Napoleon Hill and as a thinking man, and with de grace of God, I go be millionaire before I reach thirty.
CHRIS ABANI
Graceland
Wealth held by a class and used ambitiously becomes as despotic as an absolute monarchy, and has in its hands manners, customs, laws, institutions, and governments themselves.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Almost every wealthy man in this country will tell you that his greatest satisfaction and happiest days were when he was emerging from poverty into a competency; when he first felt the tonic from the swelling of his small savings towards the stream of fortune, and knew that want would no longer dog his steps.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
The Miracle of Right Thought
Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Miscellany of Men
Many people dream of inheriting a large sum of money. We spend time imagining the cars we will buy, the homes we will live in and the holidays we will take once we hit "the good times". However, most wealth advisers will tell you that those who inherit money face many challenges -- not least of which is maintaining this wealth and not squandering, in a short space of time, what may have taken generations to accrue.
JACQUES BROWN
"Inherited wealth is not an easy windfall", iAfrica, March 24, 2017
Successfully navigating wealth is a bit like flying a jetliner -- two, well-matched wings are required. One strong and one weak wing won't do; failure of either wing is catastrophic. In many families that flounder, the "planning wing" has received disproportionate attention -- trusts are established, advisors are in place, tax strategies are adopted and investment approaches are calibrated. The planning is superb. But, these complex structures comprise only one wing of the plane, and the other is equally important: family "culture."
MATTHEW WESLEY
"Wealth Planning Structures Must Match Family Cultures", Wealth Management, April 5, 2017
We may see the small value God has for riches by the people he gives them to.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble.
CHARLES READE
Christie Johnstone
In my years of working with people and their money, I can tell you that money is not their true wealth. Now, I am fully for working on and accumulation of one's net worth. Your net worth is the total of your assets minus your liabilities. Net worth is what we have to show for years of hard work, and rightfully it should add up to something significant. But your money, or even your net worth, is not your true wealth. Rather, True Wealth is all that money can't buy.
LOUANN SCHULFER
"Schulfer: Wealth money can't buy", Stevens Point Journal, February 3, 2016
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. Just 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 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 sands, holding only the dust of kings.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
He who has wealth has friends.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
If you are rich, you have to be an idiot not to stay rich. And if you are poor, you have to be really smart to get rich.
JOHN GREEN
"The Greek Debt Crisis Explained in Four Minutes", YouTube
The wise man knoweth where to stop, as he runneth in the race of fortune,
For experience of old hath taught him, that happiness lingered midway;
And many in hot pursuit have hasted to the goal of wealth,
But have lost, as they ran, those apples of gold--the mind and the power to enjoy it.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy