“There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.”
“So our Lord God commonly gave riches to those gross asses to whom he vouchsafed nothing else.”
“No one has ever said it, but how painfully true it is that the poor have us always with them.”
“What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”
“If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.”
“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
“A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.”
“With the great part of rich people, the chief employment of riches consists in the parade of riches.”
“If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.”
“Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.”
“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”
“The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.”
“One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.”
“Of all the riches that we hug, of all the pleasures we enjoy, we can carry no more out of this world than out of a dream.”
“About the only difference between the poor and the rich, is this, the poor suffer misery, while the rich have to enjoy it.”
“The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.”
“A sumptuous dwelling the rich man hath. And dainty is his repast; but remember that luxury's prodigal hand keeps the furnace of toil in blast.”
“I don't mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it, but I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.”
“There are two things needed in these days; first, for rich men to find out how poor men live; and second, for poor men to know how rich men work.”
“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.”
“It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.”
“Of rich men it telleth, and strange is the story how they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory has been but a burden they scarce might abide.”
“Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.”
“The wretchedness of being rich is that you live with rich people. To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.”
“Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by 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.”
“He rides in the row at ten o clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don't call that leading an idle life, do you?”
“To value riches is not to be covetous. They are the gift of God, and, like every gift of his, good in themselves, and capable of a good use. But to overvalue riches, to give them a place in the heart which God did not design them to fill, this is covetous”
“The trouble is that rich people, well-to-do people, very often don't really know who the poor are; and that is why we can forgive them, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by them, it's because they do not know them.”
“Among the very 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 egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.”