Great Throughts Treasury

"Riches enlarge, rather than satisfy appetites." - Thomas Fuller

"Moderate riches will carry you; if you have more, you must carry them." - Thomas Fuller

"You become spiritually rich when you discover the riches of the kingdom within: when you have a consciousness of the oneness of all life; when you experience kinship with nature; when you are open to the buoyant spiritual life of being in tune with the Infinite; when you know the power of meditation and prayer." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

"Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves." - William Hazlitt

"If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires. " - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

"The other side of its Becoming, History, is a conscious, self-meditating process — Spirit emptied out into Time; but this externalization, this kenosis, is equally an externalization of itself; the negative is the negative of itself. This Becoming presents a slow-moving succession of Spirits, a gallery of images, each of which, endowed with all the riches of Spirit, moves thus slowly just because the Self has to penetrate and digest this entire wealth of its substance" - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

"At this moment there is a world - a world of great beauty, of great truth, an enchanting, beguiling, thrilling, bewitching, and enriching world of facts - out there in fact land. It is a land of great riches. There are riches for the soul, there are riches for the spirit, there are riches for science. It is a land beyond imagining, but strangely it is very uncrowded. It is crowded only in spots. There are lots of artists looking at great paintings, and there are lots of musicians listening to orchestras, and there are lots of scientists looking at space shuttles, and there are lots of doctors looking at hearts, and there are lots of mathematicians looking at numbers, but very, very few people are seeing it all... They're a group called "Genius"... True geniuses have always been few in number and immensely curious about everything." - Glenn Doman

"The art of governing the passions is more useful, and more important, than many things in the search and pursuit of which we spend our days. Without this art, riches and health, and skill and knowledge, will give us little satisfaction; and whatsoever else we be, we can be neither happy, nor wise, nor good." - John Jortin

"Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly." - Joseph Murphy

"Great art suspends the reverted eye, the lamented past, the anticipated future; we enter it with the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner and mode, open to the riches and the glories of a realm that time forgot, but that great art reminds us of: not by it's content, but by what it does in us: suspends the desire to be elsewhere." - Ken Wilber, fully Kenneth Earl Wilber II

"The technique of a great seducer requires a facility and an indifference in passing from one object of affection to another which I could never have; however that may be, my loves have left me more often than I have left them, for I have never been able to understand how one could have enough of any beloved. The desire to count up exactly the riches which each new love brings us, and to see it change, and perhaps watch it grow old, accords ill with multiplicity of conquests." - Marguerite Yourcenar, pseudonym for Marguerite Cleenewerck de Crayencour

"May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as will keep me friendly with myself." - Max Ehrmann

"When you see a man elated with pride, glorying in his riches and high descent, rising even above fortune, look out for his speedy punishment; for he is only raised the higher that he may fall with a heavier crash" - Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL

"Worldly riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them." - Nachman of Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Bratslav, Nachman from Uman NULL

"Quick riches are often more dangerous than poverty." - Napoleon Hill

"The weaknesses and defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral diseases which lead to crime, are handed down from one generation to another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been able to establish, in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to entail upon posterity." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Children can have no better inheritance than believing parents. Religion can become real in the midst of the family as in practically no other way. Many of us have inherited great riches from our parents - the bank account of their personal faith and family prayers." - Nels F. S. Ferré, fully Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré

"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization." - Otto von Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg

"Each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices men become more and more divided into governors and governed, exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of the age declined." - Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

"Each time these institutions, issued from popular genius, when it had reconquered its liberty for a moment, — each time these institutions developed in a new direction, the moral level of society, its material well-being, its liberty, its intellectual progress, and the affirmation of individual originality made a step in advance. And, on the contrary, each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices men become more and more divided into governors and governed, exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of the age declined." - Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

"The masses have never believed in sophisms taught by economists, uttered more to confirm exploiters in their rights than to convert exploited! Peasants and workers, crushed by misery and finding no support in the well-to-do classes, have let things go, save from time to time when they have affirmed their rights by insurrection. And if workers ever thought that the day would come when personal appropriation of capital would profit all by turning it into a stock of wealth to be shared by all, this illusion is vanishing like so many others. The worker perceives that he has been disinherited, and that disinherited he will remain, unless he has recourse to strikes or revolts to tear from his masters the smallest part of riches built up by his own efforts; that is to say, in order to get that little, he already must impose on himself the pangs of hunger and face imprisonment, if not exposure to Imperial, Royal, or Republican fusillades." - Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

"A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires." - Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

"The poverty of one who has renounced is real riches compared with the riches of one who holds them fast." - Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence. " - Plato NULL

"The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles. " - Plato NULL

"Virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue. " - Plato NULL

"Happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches are making the most of what you've got. " -

"Happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches are making the most of what you've got. " - Rosamunde Pilcher, also pen name Jane Fraser

"[It is necessary to assign]... to economic activity itself its proper place as servant, not a master, of society. The burden of our civilisation is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is sill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the processes of his own digestion that he goes to his grave before he has begun to live, industrialised communities neglect the very objects for which it is worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with the means by which riches can be acquired." - R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney

"Jewish Science combats the fear of poverty by emphasizing the fact that true wealth lies in the acquisition of spiritual riches. Material riches is not life, it is only a means for living. To value life by wealth is to degrade it. Trust in God and He will satisfy all your needs. He has prepared sustenance for all those to whom He gave life. He has placed it within their reach and has given them the power to go and obtain it. Just as He has prepared sustenance for all the birds, but, having given them the means of obtaining it through their own efforts, has not thrown it into their nests ; so, with the same end, He has endowed man with the necessary tools to dig and labor for his bread. It is the process of obtaining his necessities that develops man and makes life interesting. A life of simple comfort, obtained through one's own efforts, a life free from forebodings and fear, is a goal to be desired more ardently than a superabundance of wealth and luxury." - Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein

"Worldly riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them." - Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL

"Some people pride themselves on their riches and power" - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach

"Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own." - Robertson Davies

"Misery assails riches, as lightning does the highest towers; or as a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, so do riches destroy the virtue of their possessor." - Robert Burton

"Worldly wealth is the Devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase, as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun." - Robert Burton

"All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas -- not money." - Robert Collier

"Of lunacy, Innumerous were the causes; humbled pride, Ambition disappointed, riches lost, And bodily disease, and sorrow, oft By man inflicted on his brother man; Sorrow, that, made the reason drunk, and yet Left much untasted. So the cup was fill'd. " - Robert Pollok

"All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach

"Strayed in mid-youth, rouse up, nor sleep, for lo! The days of youth like clouds of smoke will pass. Ere evening falls, thou shalt be withered grass, Though morning saw thee like a lily blow. Why waste on ancestors a heated breath, Or note which progeny was Abraham’s? Whether his food be herbs or Bashan rams, Man, wretched wight, is on his way to death." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"Thou art One, the first of every number, and the foundation of every structure, Thou art One, and at the mystery of Thy Oneness the wise of heart are struck dumb, For they know not what it is. Thou art One, and Thy Oneness can neither be increased nor lessened, It lacketh naught, nor doth aught remain over. Thou art One, but not like a unit to be grasped or counted, For number and change cannot reach Thee. Thou art not to be visioned, nor to be figured thus or thus. Thou art One, but to put to Thee bound or circumference my imagination would fail me. Therefore I have said I will guard my ways lest I sin with the tongue. Thou art One, Thou art high and exalted beyond abasement or falling, "For how should the One fall?"" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"Who shall understand Thy mysteries? For thou hast encompassed the second sphere with a third sphere, And therein a brightness (Venus) like a queen amid her hosts, And her garments adorned like a bride’s, And in eleven months she fulfilleth her circuit, And her body to that of the earth is as one to thirty and seven, To those who know her secret and understand her. And she reneweth in the world, by the will of her Creator, Peace and prosperity, dancing and delight, And songs and shouts of joy, And the love-cries of bride and bridegroom on their canopies. And it is she conspireth the ripening of fruit And other vegetation, "From the precious things of the fruits of the sun, And from the precious things of the yield of the moons."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"Rose-Morals - I. -- Red. Would that my songs might be What roses make by day and night -- Distillments of my clod of misery Into delight. Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast As yon red rose, and dare the day, All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest? Say yea -- say yea! Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye; The wind is up; so; drift away. That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, I strive, I pray. II. -- White. Soul, get thee to the heart Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there -- There breathe the meditations of thine art Suffused with prayer. Of spirit grave yet light, How fervent fragrances uprise Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white Virginities! Mulched with unsavory death, Grow, Soul! unto such white estate, That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath, Thy work, thy fate." - Sidney Lanier

"The rumor fills the Earth." - Russian Proverbs

"I ask that if you find anything edifying, anything consoling, anything well presented, that you give all praise, all glory and all honor to the Blessed Son of God Jesus Christ. If on the other hand, you find anything that is ill composed, uninteresting or not to well explained, you impute and attribute it to my weakness, blindness, and lack of skill." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL

"Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"The golden age is before us, not behind us." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL