Quotes about wealth

Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws

When you’re rich, you don’t have friends; you just have endless acquaintances.

From my point of view it is better to be alive and young again, and broke, than it is to be the richest corpse in Forest Lawn.

In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.

The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.

Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.

Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.

Let me define that [wealth] in a non-parochial way as the repertoire of physical transformations that they would be capable of causing.

Quick riches are more dangerous than poverty.

Sons and daughters of wealthy men, and others who inherit money which they did not earn... Power in the hands of one who did not acquire it gradually, is often fatal to success.

All achievement, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea! p.18

And where did anyone get the brainless opinion that the super-rich are too wealthy to steal? ...from Ford to Hughes to Iacocca and Trump and the other tycoon redeemers, we have an exact demonstration that nobody is more covetous and greedy than those who have far too much."