Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

We all seem to be about aggression and greed. It's a massive pressure that affects us all.

With a group of bankers I always had the feeling that success was measured by the extent one gave nothing away.

We've been raised to compete, to want more! More! More! It's a way of life. It's about greed.

The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.

In the nature of man we find three principle causes of quarrel. First, competition; second diffidence; thirdly, glory.

Capitalism carries in itself war, like clouds carry rain.

The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for fortune than for truth.

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.

America has gone crazy with greed. I really have to say that.

Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O Lord, give me money, only money.

There is no money in this world that will make us fight.

There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.

Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on.

Where there is money, there is fighting.

Money has no religion except itself.

To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country - the young men.

Majestic mighty Wealth is the holiest of our gods.

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

I had a dream I can buy my way to heaven.

Gold will buy the highest honours; and gold will purchase love.

In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except "Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it"? Money has become the grand test of virtue.

On Earth they've forgotten how to make everything except money. But what good is it, if there's nothing worthwhile left to buy?

We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country…. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. MORE IS GOOD. MORE IS GOOD. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.

O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!

American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.