Pursuit of Wealth Quotes

People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you're going to lose. You're just going to. Even if you get the money, you're not going to be happy.

I never met a rich man who was happy, but I have only very occasionally met a poor man who did not want to become a rich man.

The idea of caring is that someone is making money faster [than you are] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?

Without this tremendous passion for power, influence, and advantage which money gives, how could nature develop the highest type of man? Without this infinite longing, whence would come the discipline which industry, perseverance, tact, sagacity, and frugality give?

Human beings place their desires ahead of the collective good.

If you want money more than anything, you'll be bought and sold. If you have a greed for food, you'll be a loaf of bread. This is a subtle truth: Whatever you love, you are.

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative,they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.

...thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness?

Materialism prevails in Europe today. You may pray for the salvation of the modern sceptics, but they do not yield, they want reason.

Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.

I live my life through the prism of capitalism and physiological limits and eventualities. In all of that, there is no spirituality required. No God and karma is needed for the numbers. I live my life by the numbers. Not only am I an American, I am an Americanist.

I think in American culture, we put value on economic success but tell people you don't have to be economically successful to be happy.

Most of the people living in New York have come here from the far to try to make enough money to go back to the farm

Avarice and luxury, those evils which have been the ruin of every great state.

Money was a much saner goal than adoration. They'll both drive you crazy but if I'm going to blow my brains out for five years, I want something to show for it.

The Carpetbaggers was the first big money I made. Money gave me a lot of freedom, but no matter how much you make there's always somebody chasing your ass for more.

A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.

And I can't even go to the grocery store without some ones that's clean and a shirt with a team/It seems we living the American dream but people highest up got the lowest self esteem/The prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings.

There is only one vice, which may be found in life with as strong features, and as high a colouring as needs be employed by any satyrist or comic poet; and that is AVARICE.

It was left for the present age to endow Covetousness with glamour on a big scale, and to give it a title which it could carry like a flag. It occurred to somebody to call it Enterprise. From the moment of that happy inspiration, Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back.

Everybody in America is so money-hungry. It's like a rat race and even when you win you're still a freaking rat.

Those who desire to become rich, desire it at once.

The materialistic idealism that governs American life, that on the one hand makes a chariot of every grocery wagon, and on the other a mere hitching post of every star, lets every man lead a very enticing double life.

I doubt there is any true courage in squabbling for money.