Quotes about wealth

Wealth unused might as well not exist.

— Aesop

A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if her were rich.

— John Jacob Astor

The only thing I like about rich people is their money.

— Lady Nancy Astor

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

— Francis Bacon

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. [Matthew 6:20]

— Bible

Wealth maketh many friends. [Proverbs 19:4]

— Bible

Wealth acquired by vanity shall be diminished; but he that gathers it by labor shall increase.

— Bible

It ain't so much trouble to get rich as it is to tell when we have got rich.

— Josh Billings

The only point in making money is, you can tell some big shot where to go.

— Humphrey Bogart

The reason why we see that people of the greatest capacity are not rich, is either they despise wealth in comparison to something else, or, they are not content in getting an estate, unless they may do it in their own way, while at the same time enjoying all the pleasures and gratitude's of life.

— Eustace Budgell

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.

— Edmund Burke

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

— Edmund Burke

For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one's destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell.

— Samuel Butler

The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored, and unsung, no matter to what uses he leave the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. 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.

— Andrew Carnegie

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

— Andrew Carnegie

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

— Andrew Carnegie

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness.

— Robert Cecil

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

— Miguel De Cervantes

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.

— William Henry Channing

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

— Winston Churchill

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

— Jean Cocteau

If you see yourself as prosperous, you will be. If you see yourself as continually hard up, that is exactly what you will be.

— Robert Collier

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer.

— Daniel Defoe

By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.

— Democritus

He that is rich is wise.

— Daniel Depoe

There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.

— Marlene Dietrich

The first wealth is health.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wealth is in applications of mind to nature; and the art of getting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a better order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.

— Desiderius Erasmus

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.

— William Feather

Industry, perseverance, and frugality make fortune yield.

— Benjamin Franklin

He does not posses wealth that allows it to possess him.

— Benjamin Franklin

The way to wealth depends on just two words, industry and frugality.

— Benjamin Franklin

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

— Benjamin Franklin

Controlled time is our true wealth.

— Buckminster Fuller

Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

No one should be rich except those who understand it.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

— Oliver Goldsmith

The smell of profit is clean and sweet, whatever the source.

— (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal

It is sheer madness to live in want in order to be wealthy when you die.

— (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) Juvenal

This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

— John F. Kennedy

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

— Abraham Lincoln

I've been more bossed by my fortune than it has been bossed by me.

— John P. Lippett

It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind.

— Lucretius

Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none.

— Marcus Valerius Martial

You may have tangible wealth untold, caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you could never be; I know someone who told stories to me.

— Cynthia Pearl Maus

Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.

— Lord Melbourne

No just person ever became quickly rich.

— Menander of Athens

Let none admire that riches grow in hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane.

— John Milton

There's nothing so comfortable as a small bankroll. A big one is always in danger.

— Wilson Mizner

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

— Mohammed

Tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good, riches being another word for power.

— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The main source of our wealth is goodness. The affections and the generous qualities that God admires in a world full of greed.

— Alfred A. Montapert

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

— Mother Teresa

Wealth often takes away chances from men as well as poverty. There is none to tell the rich to go on striving, for a rich man makes the law that hallows and hollows his own life.

— Sean O'Casey

Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.

— Robert Orben

Although they posses enough, and more than enough still they yearn for more.

— Ovid

You can never be too rich or too thin.

— Wallis Simpson

Short of genius a rich man cannot even imagine poverty.

— Charles Peguy

Don't knock the rich. When did a poor person give you a job?

— Laurence J. Peter

Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

— Plato

Where there are friends there is wealth.

— Titus Maccius Plautus

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

— Alexander Pope

A rich widow weeps with one eye and signals with the other.

— Proverb

As the person who has health is young, so the person who owes nothing is rich.

— Proverb

You can't take it with you when you go.

— Proverb

After a rich man gets rich, his next ambition is to get richer.

— American Proverb

A wise man's day is worth a fool's life.

— Arabian Proverb

It is a wise man who lives with money in the bank, it is a fool who dies that way.

— French Proverb

Of the wealth of the world each has as much as they take.

— Italian Proverb

Plenty makes dainty!

— Scottish Proverb

A rich man is either a scoundrel or the heir of a scoundrel.

— Spanish Proverb

A penny is a lot of money, if you have not got a penny.

— Yiddish Proverb

Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.

— Ayn Rand

The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

— Antoine Rivarol

The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?

— John D. Rockefeller

Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.

— Frances Rodman

Wealth is not a matter of intelligence it's a matter of inspiration.

— Jim Rohn

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

— Theodore Roosevelt

As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

— John Ruskin

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

— Seneca

The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

— Socrates

Rich people without wisdom and learning are but sheep with golden fleeces.

— Solon

He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he is exalted above his neighbors because he has more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine.

— Jeremy Taylor

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

— Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

— Henry David Thoreau

What is the most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class.

— Alexis De Tocqueville

This is the law of prosperity. When apparent adversity comes, be not cast down by it, but make the best of it., and always look forward for better things, for conditions more prosperous.

— Ralph Waldo Trine

A great fortune in the hands of a fool is a great misfortune.

— Source Unknown

Adulation is the ever ready attendant to great wealth.

— Source Unknown