Andrew Carnegie Quotes

I believe that people of substantial wealth potentially create problems for future generations unless they themselves accept responsibility to use their wealth during their lifetime to help worthwhile causes.

I was born into it and there was nothing I could do about it. It was there, like air or food, or any other element. The only question with wealth is what you do with it.

The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away unwept, unhonoured and insung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him.

The problem with rich lists is... it is impossible to know what someone is worth until they have died and you have sold it.

Some people's money is merited and other people's is inherited.

I will give away at least half my wealth during my lifetime and after my death. In the meantime, I'll continue to grow my wealth as much as possible so that the amount I bequeath to charities and worthy causes can be as substantial as possible.

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

Those who have the most wealth and the most property, their children have the first, the best, and the most.

What the 'supposed 99 percent' don't realize is that they are better off if there are more fat cats, not less.

Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure.

I feel that India lacks a level of philanthropy that is proportional to the wealth that is here, particularly among the top 5,000 industrialists and entrepreneurs.

We have so many rich people in Switzerland. They should take more responsibility for the general public. There is almost no tradition of philanthropy here anymore, unlike in the U.S.

There are rich people everywhere, and yet they don't contribute to the growth of their countries.

Jesus discouraged the accumulation of wealth, worried about its effects on those who had it, and took special pleasure in helping the poor, dedicating his efforts to them. He must have shaken his head at the large gaps between rich and poor throughout ancient Palestine in the first century.

Support of private ownership does not mean that anyone has the right to unlimited accumulation of wealth

The prince should try to prevent too great an inequality of wealth .... prevent the wealth of the multitude from being hoarded by a few.

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contest between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.

Even if I was to give my children a small part of my wealth, it would be more than they can digest in many lifetimes.

There is an unwritten social rule now that you can harangue the wealthy to give money away, but you mustn't ask how the money was made. There are no galas celebrating the money people knew better than to seek. Charity begins after profit.

We need to make sure that we're not in a society that is unbalanced and unfair and where the richest Americans are taking advantage of everybody else.

If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.

If only the majority of the wealthiest top 10 percent of Americans own stock directly - which does not include pension and retirement accounts - then the divide between rich and poor is likely to expand.

One of the great conundrums in philanthropy globally is that the way wealth creation happens itself often creates the inequities in society.

Once you are wealthy, you are in a nice comfort zone and want to stay there. So I always look in the mirror and ask, is my philanthropy making the world a more just and fair place?