Anand Giridharadas Quotes

There's nothing wrong with being a capitalistic society, but it's taken the place of faith.

Greed is not defined by what something costs; it is measured by what it costs you. If anything costs you your faith or your family, the price is too high. Such is the point Jesus makes in the parable of the portfolio.

The man who dies rich, dies in disgrace.

The God of this world is riches, pleasure and pride.

Some people talk of morality, and some of religion, but give me a little snug property.

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Riches and the things that are necessary in life are not evil in themselves. And all of us face cares and troubles in this life. The sin comes in the time and energy we spend in pursuing these things, at the expense of neglecting Christ.

True generosity is too frequently eaten up by prosperity and riches.

I never strike out at any life form. The only things I attack are icons of conspicuous consumption. People put objects in front of their life, in front of anything that has real importance. They make this 'thing' their God.

Nigeria must be one of the very few countries in the world where a man’s source of wealth is of no concern to his neighbors, the public or the government. Once a man is able to dole out money, the churches pray for him, he collects chieftancy titles and hobnobs with those who govern. The message to those who have not made it is clear: just be rich, the ways and means are irrelevant

Politics can't motivate people. The desire to get rich—that is the only way to mobilize the whole society.

Opulence is a crime

one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.

Religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.

Wealth is a great sin in the eyes of God. Poverty is a great sin in the eyes of man.

I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property.

…luxury is the result of wealth, or it makes wealth necessary. It corrupts both rich and poor, the one by possessing, the other by coveting. It sells out the fatherland to indolence and vanity; it deprives the State of all its Citizens by enslaving some of them to others and all of them to opinion.

How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant.

The building of the transcontinental railroads resulted in an orgy of political corruption. The public lands and the natural resources of coal, of iron, and of timber were lavishly wasted in the great scramble for wealth and material power. The carnival of waste and plunder reached its climax about 1890. Evidences were abundant that the great business interests of the country were controlling the government for their own private benefit. The capitalists who financed the railroads, mines, mills, packing houses, grain elevators, and other great enterprises, received from Congress favors which destroyed competition and enormously increased private fortunes.

Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odorless.

However widely, or equally, or "fairly", it may be distributed, no general increase of the community's wealth can make any approach to satiating this need, the ground of which is the desire of every one to excel everyone else in the accumulation of goods.

Money is not God, and human dignity is very important.

My native land is a slave of heathenism, men's god is their belly, and they live only for the present. The richer a man, the holier.

You can't serve God and money.

The green tempts me to make the rich the enemy, and take their cheese.