riches Quotes

“In return the little man spun the straw into gold once again.”

“It was nearly a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair a hundred miles from home. Jurgis had never expected to get married – he had laughed at it as a foolish trap for a man to walk into; but here, without ever having spoken a word to her, with no more than the exchange of half a dozen smiles, he found himself, purple in the face with embarrassment and terror, asking her parents to sell her to him for his wife – and offering his father’s two horses he had been sent to the fair to sell. But Ona’s father proved as a rock – the girl was yet a child, and he was a rich man, and his daughter was not to be had in that way. So Jurgis went home with a heavy heart, and that spring and summer toiled and tried hard to forget. In the fall, after the harvest was over, he saw that it would not do, and tramped the full fortnight’s journey that lay between him and Ona.”

“I was a millionaire twice over and again before I was twenty-one. I stole every nickel of it...”

“Ona might have married and left them, but she would not, for she loved Teta Elzbieta. It was Jonas who suggested that they all go to America, where a friend of his had gotten rich. He would work, for his part, and the women would work, and some of the children, doubtless – they would live somehow. Jurgis, too, had heard of America. That was a country where, they said, a man might earn three rubles a day; and Jurgis figured what three rubles a day would mean, with prices as they were where he lived, and decided forthwith that he would go to America and marry, and be a rich man in the bargain. In that country, rich or poor, a man was free, it was said; he did not have to go into the army, he did not have to pay out his money to rascally officials – he might do as he pleased, and count himself as good as any other man.”

“There were hardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men, and boys literally not yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society […] Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.”

“When the rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways...and that way will come soon.”

“The common people had to move, then, and they moved complaining and cursing because a rich man could do as he would and they packed their tattered possessions and went away swelling with anger and muttering that one day they would come back even as the poor do come back when the rich are too rich.”

“They much more admire and detest the folly of those who, when they see a rich man, though they neither owe him anything, nor are in any sort dependent on his bounty, yet, merely because he is rich, give him little less than divine honours, even though they know him to be so covetous and base-minded that, notwithstanding all his wealth, he will not part with one farthing of it to them as long as he lives!”

“A boy simply wasn’t worth a man’s wages. So I aged ten years overnight.”

“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”

“Skills make you rich, not theories.”

“Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities that they think are assets.”

“So many people say, ‘Oh, I’m not interested in money.’ Yet they’ll work at a job for eight hours a day.”

“Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental.”

“No one has said I borrowed the money. I could have got it in some other way. I could have got it from an admirer. When a girl’s as pretty as I am.”

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

“‘Attitudes aren’t so different in America,’ I told Francis. ‘You are probably right,’ he said. ‘But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.’”

“Seasons is a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real.”

“Here they were arguing with every piece of leverage they could command, for a room they’d already paid for––and suddenly their whole act gets side-swiped by some crusty drifter who looks like something out of an upper-Michigan hobo jungle. And he checks in with a handful of credit cards! Jesus! What’s happening in this world?”

“Labor not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglects the present moment, throws away all that he hath. As the arrow passes through the heart, will the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.”

“A gold mine like Vegas breeds its own army, like any other gold mine. Hired muscle tends to accumulate in fast layers around money/power poles … and big money, in Vegas, is synonymous with the Power to protect it.”

This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times.

“I wish I were popular and beautiful and wealthy and talented.”

“I don’t care if your dad is the Sultan of Brunei. You happened to be born into a privileged family. What you do with that truth is completely up to you. I’m here because I want to be with you. But if I didn’t, all the money in the world wouldn’t have changed my feelings for you.”

“Why are you not smarter? It’s only the rich who can’t afford to be smart. They’re compromised. They got locked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings. No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me.”

“He told me, I might judge of the Happiness of this State, by the one thing, viz. That this was the State of Life which all other People envied, that Kings have frequently lamented the miserable Consequence of being born to great things, and wish’d they had been placed in the Middle of the two Extremes, between the Mean and the Great; that the wise Man gave his Testimony to this as the just Standard of true Felicity, when he prayed to have neither Poverty or Riches.”

“In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.“

“Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.”

“But that’s the nature of money. Whether you have it or not, whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, it will try to define your days. Our task as human beings is not to let it.”

“How happy we would be if we could find the treasure of which the Gospel speaks; all else would be as nothing. As it is boundless, the more you search for it the greater the riches you will find; let us search unceasingly and let us not stop until we have found it.”

“Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly.”

“It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!”

“With you, my life felt indeed like a fantastic adventure-despite our ordinary circumstances, your love imbued everything we did with secret riches.”

″...in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.”

“The abundant life that God has in store for you will allow you to have unimagined riches; riches so overflowing that you’ll have plenty—especially to share with others.”

“A lot of people think being happy means being rich or important.”

“Well, there’s one thing to be said for money. It can make you rich.”

“Dying intestate, Jan was sole heir To a chancery suit, and messuages, and lands, Which, with a long minority and care, Promised to turn out well in proper hands”

“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.”

“Now Hafiz is infinitely rich, But all I ever want to do Is keep emptying out My emerald-filled Pocket Upon This tear-stained World.”

″‘Son, if you want to, one day you could make a million dollars.‘”

“In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him. On the same day another English child was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.”

“Don’t trust to those who promise to make you rich in a day. Usually they are either mad or rogues.”

“Then the King sent Bartholomew home to his parents.. no basket on his arm, no hat on his head, but with five hundred pieces of gold in a bag. ”

“Do you think I’m a rich man, Comfort, to feed my dog on milk? Not I. I work for what I get.”

“Sleeping on Tar Beach was magical. Lying on the roof in the night, with stars and skyscraper buildings all around me, made me feel rich, like I owned all that I could see.”

“He’ll be rich and won’t have to stand on 24-story-high girders and look down. He can look at his building going up.”

“The world says: “You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

“Okay, I get it, but do you actually believe he doesn’t look down on us? You don’t think he sees us without thinking we’re ghetto? I just don’t want you to get hurt. You can tell right away that he’s rich.”

“I’m on deck the dawn we sail into New York. I’m sure I’m in a film, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema... Rich Americans in top hats white ties and tails must be going home to bed with the gorgeous women with white teeth. The rest are going to work in warm comfortable offices and no one has a care in the world.”

“Here’s the thing,” I would say. “Most people, wherever they’re from, whatever they look like, are looking for the same thing. They’re not trying to get filthy rich. They don’t expect someone else to do what they can do for themselves. “But they do expect that if they’re willing to work, they should be able to find a job that supports a family. They expect that they shouldn’t go bankrupt just because they get sick. They expect that their kids should be able to get a good education, one that prepares them for this new economy, and they should be able to afford college if they’ve put in the effort. They want to be safe, from criminals or terrorists. And they figure that after a lifetime of work, they should be able to retire with dignity and respect.”

“It’s only the trappings of aristocracy that I find worthwhile-the fine furniture, the paintings, the silver- the very things they have to sell when the money runs out.”

“Why had he wanted to be rich, or to feel rich? Was he an unhappy mouse before? Didn’t he see the King himself often looking sad? Was anyone completely happy?”

“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”

“Uncle is an elephant. He’s immensely rich, and he’s a B.A. He dresses well, generally, in a purple dressing gown, and often rides on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car.”

“The village on the fjord could do with a little gold, and some silks. It would not even object to a few pictures- provided, of course, that the artist had used real gold leaf in painting them.”

“This acclaimed story of World War II is rich in suspense, characterization, plot and spiritual truth. Every element of occupied Holland is united in a story of courage and hope”

“That’s another tiresome thing about having rich parents- you have what grown-ups call ‘advantages’. They think that you are very lucky and ought to be grateful, but I have tried both and I can tell you that it is much more fun to go to an ordinary school and have a bad French accent like other children.”

“He thus became immensely Rich, And built the Splendid Mansion which Is called ‘The Cedars Muswell Hill’ Where he resides in Affluence still To show what Everybody might Become by SIMPLY DOING RIGHT.”

“All that great wealth came to my hands, and if I do not say how great it was, ‘tis that I may not wake envy, for it was far more than I could have thought.”

″...when I paid you honor, I reaped no benefits, but now that I ill-treat you I am loaded with an abundance of riches.”

“If a girl’s as rich as that she’s no right to be a good-looker as well. And she is a good-looker... Got everything, that girl has. Doesn’t seem fair...”

“Now I saw in his eyes the richness of summer soil. His nose looked endearingly ruddy from being in the cold, and his voice was like a favorite song I never tired of hearing. Funny how he’d stolen his way into my heart when I’d been the thief the day we met.”

“She looks rich. Not flashy rich. The french equivalent of posh. You don’t have hair that perfect unless you spend your days basically doing nothing.”

“I have often thought with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be forever lost to those men who persecute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity. But now I have forgiven the world for the love of you; now that I see you, young and with a promising future,—now that I think of all that may result to you in the good fortune of such a disclosure, I shudder at any delay, and tremble lest I should not assure to one as worthy as yourself the possession of so vast an amount of hidden wealth.”

“And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.”

“You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed the four former attractions.”

“And there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”

“Well, a man who gets rich by that trade may be all very well in some ways, but he is blind as to what workingmen want; I could not in my conscience send him up to make the laws. I dare say they’ll be angry, but every man must do what he thinks to be the best for his country.”

“Huck’s got money. Maybe you don’t believe it, but he’s got lots of it. Oh, you needn’t smile—I reckon I can show you. You just wait a minute.”

“Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. It’s just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time.”