Echoes

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

If you wish to make Pythocles wealthy, don't give him more money; rather, reduce his desires.

He who loses his money is forsaken by his friends, his wife, his servants, and his relations; yet when he regains his riches those who have forsaken him come back to him. Hence wealth is certainly the best of relations.

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;She is a woman, therefore to be won.

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee of the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. (pp. 663-664)

More people are interested in trying to shuffle paper assets around than building lasting assets by producing real goods.

The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity. (15)

True story, Word of Honor: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, 'Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?' And Joe said, 'I've got something he can never have.' And I said, 'What on earth could that be, Joe?' And Joe said, 'The knowledge that I've got enough.' Not bad!

The man who dies rich dies disgraced.

He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.

Remember that you are a man.

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, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men Good Will."

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

The rich in all societies may be thrown into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of pleasure. As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their toilsome days and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These circumstances are sufficient almost to level their condition to that of the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place them in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labour continually, which is the severest labour, but their hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice, by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.