Helen Fisher Quotes

Wealth has never been a sufficient source of honour in itself. It must be advertised, and the normal medium is obtrusively expensive.

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.

The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.

In Europe, you would almost never have people with large amounts of income being happy with a two-volume vehicle like a hatchback or a minivan. They want to structurally show their societal position, which is why three volumes are so popular. They show 'I'm part of that hierarchy.'

Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.

Horses and horsepower alike are about status and being cool.

At some point, extra incomes don't go to sate desires but to attempt to buy status through 'positional goods' - like the hottest car on the block. The problem is that there can only be one hottest car on the block.

There's nothing - I've bought everything I want. I don't like yachts or anything; you know, I'm not a yacht person, and I've got pretty much the nicest plane I'd want to have.

Watches are about status.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

I think we have to act like stars because it is expected of us. So we drive our big cars and live in our smart houses.

People who have car collections - I never understood that. I always thought that was unnecessary. It's not beautiful, it's not creative. It's just showing how much money you've got.

It is not always them that has the most that makes the most show.

I am quite amazed how, when people earn lots of money, they think they have to spend it on things that give them access to the club constituted by the people who are in their tax bracket.

The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have.

More people smile at me now I'm richer.

The media is convincing people that if you have that 'next thing,' that diamond, the right car, then you'd be happier.

There is no stronger craving in the world than that of the rich for titles, except that of the titled for riches.

In fact, I'd just like to own something. Everyone thinks I'm glamorous, rich and famous but all I've got is some recording equipment and a battered old BMW.

I always say to my people, 'If you don't sell a Ferrari to a football player, you make a big present to me.' Really. Because they buy to just show off. I don't like.

Without money honor is merely a disease.

A chair's function is not just to provide a place to sit; it is to provide a medium for self-expression. Chairs are about status, for example. Or signalling something about oneself. That's why the words chair, seat and bench have found themselves used to describe high status professions, from academia to Parliament to the law.

I don't care what anyone says. Being rich is a good thing.

I don't have a Rolls. I don't have a jet. That's not me.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.