Quotes about Prosperity

Lakshmi the Hindu Goddess of Prosperity

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity. Aristotle

When fortune flatters, she does it to betray.  Publilius Syrus 

Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.  Ambrose Bierce

Broad acres are a patent of nobility; and no man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.  Charles Dudley Warner

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. Aeschylus

Men are divided between those who are as thrifty as if they would live forever, and those who are as extravagant as if they were going to die the next day.  Aristotle 

He that has a penny in his purse is worth a penny. Have and you shall be esteemed. Petronius  

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.  Mark Twain

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.   Giambattista Vico 

When fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald. Leonardo DA Vinci 

A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. S C Johnson

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.  Mark Twain

In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element.  The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work. Elizabeth Bowen 

Look how men live, always precariously balanced between good and bad fortune. Sophocles 

Social prosperity means man happy, the citizen free, and the nation great. Victor Hugo

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis. George Bernard Shaw 

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune. Jean Paul Getty

It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that everyone should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him. Rousseau 

Prosperity’s the very bond of love, whose fresh complexion and whose heart together, affliction alters. Shakespeare  

All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn’t for money, it’s for fun. Money’s just the way we keep score. Henry Tyroon

When a man is a favorite of fortune, she never takes him unawares, and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready. Napoleon 

Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom.  If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it. Dostoevsky 

The rich are more envied by those who have little than by those who have nothing. Charles Caleb Colton 

Business is a good game; lots of competition and minimum of rules. You keep score with money. Nolan Bushnell

Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways; they always image that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.  LA Rochefoucauld 

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom. Emerson 

If a man has money, it is usually a sign, too, that he knows how to take care of it; don’t imagine his money is easy to get simply because he has plenty of it. Edgar Watson Howe 

I should like to bring a case to trial: Prosperity versus Beauty. Cash registers teetering in a balance against the comfort of the soul. Amy Lowell  

Have but luck, and you will have the rest; be fortunate, and you will be thought great.  Victor Hugo

If a man is wise, he gets rich, and if he gets rich, he gets foolish, or his wife does. That’s what keeps the money moving around.  Finley Peter Dunne 

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to the need.  Epicurus 

Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, but yet she never gave enough to any. Sir John Harrington 

Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination. Lionel Stander 

Money is the alienated essence of man’s work and existence; this essence dominates him and he worships it. Karl Marx 

Men honor property above all else; it has the greatest power in human life. Euripides 

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. Emerson

They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have once been seduced by luxury, they can never renounce it. Rousseau

When you find fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold, and being a woman the young.  Baltasar Gracian 

It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized. Aristotle 

The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. Benjamin Franklin

Riches are intended for the comfort of life, and not life for the purpose of hoarding riches. Sadi 

Natural wealth is limited and easily obtained; the wealth defined by vain fancies is always beyond reach. Epicurus 

Industry if fortune’s right hand, and frugality her left. Thomas Fuller

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend. Mark Twain

Hardship is vanishing, but so is style and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes. E. M. Forster 

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection. Edmund Burke 

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all; only our characters are steadfast, not our gold. Euripides 

Money is not an aphrodisiac; the desire it may kindle in the female eye is more for the cash than the carrier. Marya Mannes 

There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. Euripides 

The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit. Plato

It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.  Kim Hubbard

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.  Rex Stout & Nero Wolfe

Riches rather enlarge than satisfy appetites. Thomas Fuller 

We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds. Adam Clayton Powell 

Don’t envy men because they seem to have a run of luck, since luck’s a nine day’s wonder. Wait their end.  Euripides

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.  Hilaire Belloc

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.  Kahlil Gibran 

Good fortune leads one to the highest glory, but to renounce it calls for equal courage. Corneille 

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge

Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all taste and comfort. Sydney Smith

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship gods, and over these ideals they dispute; but they all worship money.  Mark Twain 

Let everyone witness how many different cards fortune has up her sleeve when she wants to ruin a man. Benvenuto Cellini

A penny saved is a penny to squander. Ambrose Bierce 

Now and then there is a person born who is so unlucky that he runs into accidents which started out to happen to somebody else. Don Marquis    

The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount is very slight, and that, also, can shatter the world. Thornton Wilder  

And Finally Remember:
The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles. 

Quotes about Ambition and Aspiration

Woman of ambition by James Tissot

Everything that has been achieved, for good or for bad, is due to the way humans are. The future will be no different. Whether we reach for the stars or plumb the depths, humans will be responsible. Tom Johnston

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulity's of mankind. Joseph Conrad

Here lay the tragedy. Western man is so constituted that he cannot abide contentment. It is the unforgivable sin. He must forever strive towards some unseen goal, whether it be material comfort, a greater and purer God, or some weapon that will make him master of the universe. Daphne Du Maurier

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. Friedrich Nietzsche

The city is ourselves, mirroring with precision our needs and our activities, our values and our aspirations, our confusions and our contradictions.  Michael Middleton

All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition. Cesare Pavese 

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. Thoreau 

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do. Khalil Gibran

Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal. Nietzsche 

Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Only in proportion as we are desirous of living more do we really live. Jose Ortega Y Gasset  

On the neck of the young man sparkles no gem as gracious as enterprise. Hafiz 

I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.  George Bernard Shaw

What appears to be generosity is often only ambition disguised, which despises small interests to pursue great ones. LA Rochefoucauld 

We should be careful as to the play, but indifferent to the ball. Epictetus 

We often pass from love to ambition, but we hardly ever return from ambition to love. LA Rochefoucauld 

I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of illusion. Thus I am never dull. John Galsworthy

Wild ambition loves to slide, not stand; and fortunes ice prefers to virtue’s land. John Dryden 

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Francis Bacon

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position. LA Bruyere

A man’s aspiration should exceed his success or he begins to die. Gerald Wolfe 

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth. Longfellow 

First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. Epictetus 

None will improve your lot if you yourselves will not. Bertolt Brecht 

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping. Jonathan Swift

There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future, hunting impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes. Pindar 

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind. Eric Hoffer

A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. Marcus Aurelius 

If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third place. Cicero

The means prepare the end, and the end is what the means have made it. John Morley

People are always neglecting something they can do in trying to do something they can’t do. Edgar Watson Howe

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune. William Penn

Aspiration provides man with the reason for living; that being activity. Mary Simmonds   

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Oliver Wendell Holmes