financial morality Quotes

I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.

A budget is a moral document.

Money is not good or evil. It has no morals or intentions on its own. Money reflects the character of the user.

Henceforth ye may thieve with better knowledge whence lucre should be won, and learn that it is not well to love gain from every source. For thou wilt find that ill-gotten pelf brings more men to ruin than to weal.

I borrow to pay my honest debts and not to squander foolishly. What's more, I confine my borrowing to those who can well afford it. I don't go around sponging on widows and orphans unless they have plenty.

I, who ne'erWent for myself a begging, go a borrowing,And that for others. Borrowing's much the sameAs begging; just as lending upon usuryIs much the same as thieving.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty.

Money has no moral opinions.

The man enslaved to wealth can never be honest.

The perfect pleasure: money is neither fattening nor immoral nor illegal.

I was really interested in a pretty simple thing: what happens when someone tries to introduce moral considerations into Wall Street, what happens when someone wants to actually demand of himself and those who work with him that what they do is not just profitable but good and useful.

Seneca devoted much of his time to writing essays in praise of poverty, and in lending money at usurious rates.

If you keep a clean heart with your money, you will have a clean karmic cycle, but the day you do something negative to another person, that karmic circle will start to bring you down.

Making money isn't something to be ashamed of. There's a feeling now that if you have money you must have got it by some kind of shady dealing or being an MP.

Money goes to money heaven, body goes to body hell.

Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile. It is an accident, and if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain.

There can be no such thing as usury: for what rate of interest is there that can naturally be more proper than another? what natural fixed price can there be for the use of money more than for the use of any other thing? Were it not then for custom, usury, considered in a moral view, would not then so much as admit of a definition…. Putting money out at interest, is exchanging present money for future: but why a policy, which, as applied to exchanges in general, would be generally deemed absurd and mischievous, should be deemed necessary in the instance of this particular kind of exchange, mankind are as yet to learn.

The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.

If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it, to take their money by force for your own needs, then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people He gives it to.

When people feel like, 'Lenders weren't fair with me; I don't have any responsibility to be fair with them.' If we go far enough down that line, much of the fabric of our economy starts to unravel.

I refuse to accept the idea that money is evil. People make things evil and negative. Some people love what money can do and therefore would do anything to get it, they love the power, they chase it, while others understand what money can do, therefore they do what's in their hearts, they understand the influence and attract it.

It's wrong to rob banks, yeah, but is it right for banks to loan people money, knowing full well they can't pay it back?

The people of this nation are eminently a trafficking people; and the present standard of honesty, as to trade and debts, is very low, and every year seems sinking still lower.