Wealth

“ Those precious benefits form a chief part of what I may call the common estate of society: a wealth over and above buildings, machinery, produce, shipping, and so on, though closely connected with these; a wealth of a more delicate kind, that we may more unconsciously bring into danger, doing harm and not knowing that we do it. I mean that treasure of knowledge, science, poetry, refinement of thought, feeling, and manners, great memories and the interpretation of great records, which is carried on from the minds of one generation to the minds of another. ”

“ And do you think that he, a merchant, who probably places a very high value on money, because experience has taught him its value, will say, like you, 'Palace or hovel, poverty or wealth, it makes no difference'? ”

“ Spend your wealth, if you please, in whatever indulgences you have a taste for; but your wealth is not the indulgences, it is the sum of money, or the annual money income, with which you purchase them. ”

“ But the undue reverence which is everywhere manifested for wealth, the rank which is conceded it, the homage which is paid it, the perpetual worship which is offered it, all tend to magnify its desirableness, and awaken longings for its possession in the minds of those born without inheritance. In society, as at present observed, the acquisition of money would seem to be the height of human aim—the great object of living, to which all other purposes are made subordinate. ”

“ This, with coming generations, by their industry, by the stimulus of an unquenchable thirst for wealth, will, in all probability, accumulate countless riches—will, if we may speak thus figuratively, erect in our land immense moneyed houses filled with gold and silver, the reward of their desire. ”

“ A large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! what other reward can you ask! "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" ”

“ Now, I am not prepared to say that to acquire wealth is wrong. But I am prepared to say this, and in saying it I base myself on our Lord’s own words, wealth and the luxury it buys are perilous to the best interests of the soul. ”

“ Because you have been accustomed to consider value and wealth as the same things, which they are not. Our wealth consists in whatever is valuable in use as well as in exchange. Owing to the storm of last year, I have less wealth in my possession now than I had then, though what I have may, perhaps, exchange for more wealth still. I have as much furniture, and as many clothes and luxuries, and as much money; but I have fewer growing vines, and much less wine. ”

“ Can money be made out of it? Will it make the rich richer, and the strong stronger? How will it effect property? In the eyes of such people, there is no God but wealth; no right and wrong but profit and loss. ”

“ I am more solicitous to see its benefits extended world-wide during my lifetime than to turn the stream of wealth, which it is generating to millions of persons, into my own pocket. A few drops from the sea, which may not be missed, will suffice for me. ”

“ The portion of truth, I can hardly say contained in these observations, but recalled by them, I apprehend to be, that a state of complete equality of fortunes would not be favourable to active exertion for the increase of wealth. Speaking of the mass, it is as true of wealth as of most other distinctions—of talent, knowledge, virtue—that those who already have, or think they have, as much of it as their neighbours, will seldom exert themselves to acquire more. ”

“ Teach him to be prudent, industrious, economical as you will, and my example and teachings shall be added to your own; but impress not upon his young mind the doctrine that the acquisition of wealth is the chief end of his existence, and its possession the chief source of man’s enjoyment. ”

“ What have you got to be so proud of? They have gold, silver, houses, lands and possessions, and they feel, "O, we are kings, potentates, or men of great influence, because of our wealth." But where did they get their wealth? ”

“ They [his pastoral charge] are, in the language of Scripture, ‘your money.’ They are the source, the means of your wealth; by their labour do you obtain the necessaries, the conveniences, and comforts of life. The increase of them is the general standard of your worldly prosperity: without them you would be comparatively poor. They are consequently sought after and desired as property, and when possessed, must be so taken care of and managed as to be made profitable. ”

“ Our lexicographers define riches to be opulence, the possession of landed estates, of gold and silver, etc., and the man that possesses the most of this kind of wealth is rich in comparison with his neighbor. The riches of a kingdom or nation does not consist so much in the fulness of its treasury as in the fertility of its soil and the industry of its people. The common definition may be termed the riches of this world, but are they the true riches? ”

“ Well, I have seen the abundance,—the wealth has really poured in; every one is richer, better fed, clothed, housed, and cared for, and almost in an equal ratio are they grown more covetous, grasping, envious, and malevolent—You won't let me finish,” cried she, as he showed an increasing impatience. ”

“ They acquire their wealth in the honorable pursuits of business. They expend it to promote the happiness of every one within their sphere, and their cheerful days and tranquil nights show that wealth is a blessing or a curse, as it ministers to the higher or lower propensities of our nature. ”

“ Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; ”

“ Wealth, then, may be defined, all useful or agreeable things which possess exchangeable value; or, in other words, all useful or agreeable things except those which can be obtained, in the quantity desired, without labour or sacrifice. ”

“ That subject is Wealth. Writers on Political Economy profess to teach, or to investigate, the nature of Wealth, and the laws of its production and distribution: including, directly or remotely, the operation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind, or of any society of human beings, in respect to this universal object of human desire, is made prosperous or the reverse. ”

“ Power, and wealth, and luxury, are relative terms; and if address, and prudence, and policy, can only acquire us our share, we shall not account ourselves more powerful, more rich, or more luxurious, than when in the little we possessed we were still equal to those around us. ”

“ But they may also be prepared by excellence of character, and by habits of business and of life, for the possession and use of large wealth, under the great responsibility of stewards who are yet to give account to the real Proprietor of all the treasures in the world. ”

“ Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive, Get Riches first, get Wealth, and Treasure heap, Not difficult, if thou hearken to me, Riches are mine, Fortune is in my hand; They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain, 430 While Virtue, Valour, Wisdom sit in want. ”

“ But I have great wealth, and an income that brings In enough to provide for the wants of three kings.' But is this any reason you should not apply Your superfluous wealth to ends nobler, more high? You so rich, why should any good honest man lack? ”

“ The real nature of this exchange is made unclear by the indirect, or induced, gratification derived from wealth. Wealth gives to its owner power, prestige, the esteem of his fellows, and pride in evidences of success and growing prosperity. ”

“ Inherited wealth—riches derived from parents and other ancestors. "2. Discovered wealth—riches derived from the uncultivated resources of mother earth. "3. Trade wealth—riches obtained as a fair profit in the exchange and barter of material goods. "4. Unfair wealth—riches derived from the unfair exploitation or the enslavement of one's fellows. "5. Interest wealth—income derived from the fair and just earning possibilities of invested capital. "6. Genius wealth—riches accruing from the rewards of the creative and inventive endowments of the human mind. ”

“ One consists in a solicitude to acquire wealth for the sake of those advantages which wealth bestows, and the dread of poverty and its attendant evils; the other, in an anxiety for wealth on its own account only, and which sacrifices to the attainment of it every advantage that wealth can give. The first is the exaggeration of a quality, which when not carried to excess is praiseworthy, and is called economy. ”

“ Subject, however, to these contingencies, personal qualities are wealth, and wealth of the most valuable kind. The amount of the revenue derived from their exercise in England, far exceeds the rental of all its land.
The words wealth and value differ as substance and attribute. All those things, and those things only, which constitute wealth, are valuable. ”

“ The view which has here been taken of the nature of wealth, namely, that it consists in an intrinsic value developed by a vital power, is directly opposed to two nearly universal conceptions of wealth. ”

“ It appears to be clear that whatever constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things which constitute wealth? ”

“ They exchange, buy, and sell, with each other: there exist therefore among them gradations of strength, skill, perseverance, frugality, and good luck — together with the consequent gradations of wealth and poverty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some of these were, of course, mean and sordid souls, to whom wealth was an end in itself. But among them one emerged who was more than a millionaire, who was capable of dreaming great dreams, and had acquired his wealth chiefly in order that he might have the power to realise them. ”

“ Wealth enables us either to purchase directly the services of other men, as of those whom we desire to have in attendance about us; or to purchase commodities; or, it adds to our Power and Dignity. As far as it purchases the services of others directly, the truth of what we have advanced is obvious. ”

“ They appear to think that wealth will gain for them all that may be desired to make life happy. We might illustrate the thought by saying that they sow or plant their money and hope that it will bring forth a fruitage of the blessings for which they long. [Draw the bag of money, the earth line, the stalk of the plant and the outline of the foliage, all with black.] And what do the possessors of riches expect as a harvest in return for the sowing of their wealth? First, let us put down Pleasure. [Put in the word Pleasure, using red for the lettering.] ”

“ Why should we not expect, then, to find the same need, though in a refined and intense form, felt by those to whom superior intelligence and energy, or the favour of fortune, has granted the power to accumulate wealth in large quantities, those, in other words, who have at their disposal greater means of procuring for themselves the pleasures and good things of life? ”

“ Wealth—constituted authority—softness and ease and luxury. I'll teach you what softness is! You'll know what a heaven a hard bed can be, after a day in the wind off Bering Straits. You'll find out what luxury is, too. ”

“ This is the usual definition of wealth. Henry George (see “Progress and Poverty,” pp. 34-37) regards wealth as consisting “of natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion, so as to fit them for the gratification of human desires.... Nothing which Nature supplies to man without his labor is wealth.... All things which have an exchange value are, therefore, not wealth. Only such things can be wealth the production of which increases and the destruction of which decreases the aggregate of wealth.... ”

“ The abundance of wealth that they had gotten with a great deal of art and industry, and that which they had laid up with a great deal of care and confidence, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows. ”

“ The human being himself (as formerly observed) I do not class as wealth. He is the purpose for which wealth exists. But his acquired capacities, which exist only as means, and have been called into existence by labour, fall rightly, as it seems to me, within that designation. ”

“ There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. ”

“ One gains the impression that there is little or no real desire to gain a true conception—a scientific conception—of wealth. Everybody seems to prefer an emotional definition—a definition that suits his personal love of wealth or his hatred of it. Many definitions of wealth, capital and money are to be found in modern books of political economy—definitions and books belonging to humanity's childhood. ”

“ Wealth flowed into his kingdom from all the surrounding countries, consequently, luxury, with its never-failing associate, debauchery, made its appearance, and the decadence of this mighty kingdom set in. ”

“ But wealth could come only from universal industry, honesty, thrift, and fair dealing among men. In his own dealings with his fellow men, he required those qualities; and, although his keen sympathies invariably responded to true distress, he had scant patience with those whose false vision saw in wealth honestly acquired a fund to be drawn upon for the support of the lazy and shiftless. ”

“ Golden between the heaven and earth he shineth. The Gods possessed the wealth bestowing Agni. 6. Root of wealth, gathering-place of treasures, banner of sacrifice, who grants the suppliant's wishes: Preserving him as their own life immortal, the Gods possessed the wealth-bestowing Agni. 7. Now and of old the home of wealth, the mansion of what is born and what was born aforetime, Guard of what is and what will be hereafter,--the Gods possessed the wealth bestowing Agni. 8. May the Wealth-Giver grant us conquering riches; may the Wealth-Giver grant us wealth with heroes. ”