I Would Rather Be Rich Quotes & Sayings

Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness? — Henry David Thoreau

I hadn't known this about love: that you did not need to deserve it. I thought there was a set of criteria, like a good sense of humor and looks and wealth. You could compensate deficiencies in one area with excellence in another, hence rich, ugly men with beautiful wives. But there was an algorithm involved. That was why I thought I was unloved: I didn't score highly enough. I had made some attempts to improve my score and also told myself I didn't care because that was what women wanted, something fake and temporary, I would rather be alone. And sometimes I was just lazy and would rather code things. But here I was soaking in a bath of my own filth with Lola scrubbing my shoulders, and what algorithm could explain that? That problem was nonhalting. — Max Barry

Some women seem so voluptuous in every sense, richly bountiful and fertile with generous gifts of plenty, sensual and confident in their female strength that they are called "earth mothers."
That's how some days feel - when they are bountiful and fertile with the power of our imagination. — Vera Nazarian

Labor produces marvels for the rich but it produces deprivation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back to barbaric labor, and it turns the remainder into machines. — Karl Marx

A writer can't just be well-educated or good at research; to build a living, breathing world with interesting characters, you have to write from the gut. I'm not saying you have to live your life like a fantasy adventure. The trick is the ability to synthesize your own everyday experiences into your fiction. Infuse your characters with believable emotions and motivations. Infuse your world with rich sensory detail. For that you have to be in touch with your own existence and your own soul, the dark and the light of it. — Lynn Flewelling

I think greed is a critical problem - the gap between the poor and the rich. The gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent. — Richard Rogers

It [money] doesn't have anything have anything to do with the magnificence of a person. It doesn't. What matters is what you make. Whether it's a cake for bingo night or a costume for a saint or a wall of water
whatever you pour into this life is what makes you rich. — Adriana Trigiani

I would much rather be the trusting child of a rich Father, than a beggar at the door of worldly men. — Corrie Ten Boom

Oh, yesterday, that one, we all cry out. Oh, that one! How rich and possible everything was! How ripe, ready, lavish, and filled with excitement
how hopeful we were on those summer days, under the clean, white racing clouds. Oh, yesterday! — Mary Oliver

Like the twig furniture she made, thinking it was going to make us rich, only she's shit with a hammer and nails and the stuff ended up being deadly. You were practically begging for a colonoscopy if you sat on it. — Susan Juby

Her eyes were a rich dark brown that were so deep, they reminded me of my sleepless nights, awake, staring into complete darkness. I felt compelled to look deeper, searching for something inside her, but her soul was covered and her eyes would not show me. — Cristina Martin

I play for the poor man. I try to give a thrill to the lunch bucket fan. I know their plight. I worked in a factory in high school. The poor folk who lay out the hard bread to see a game. That's where my heart lies. The rich don't need heroes. — Leon Wagner

As people get their opinions so largely from the newspapers they read, the corruption of the schools would not matter so much if the Press were free. But the Press is not free. As it costs at least a quarter of a million of money to establish a daily newspaper in London, the newspapers are owned by rich men. And they depend on the advertisements of other rich men. Editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones. — George Bernard Shaw

I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails. — Hedy Lamarr

Coyotes move within a landscape of attentiveness. I have seen their eyes in the creosote bushes and among mesquite trees. They have watched me. And all the times that I saw no eyes, that I kept walking and never knew, there were still coyotes. When I have seen them trot away, when I have stepped from the floorboard of my truck, leaned on the door, and watched them as they watched me over their shoulders, I have been aware for that moment of how much more there is. Of how I have only seen only an instant of a broad and rich life. — Craig Childs

know a little about a lot. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

A rich poet from Harvard has no sense in his mind, except the aesthetic. — Beatrice Wood

There was somewhere, if you knew where to find it, some place where money could be made like drawing water from a well, some Big Rock Candy Mountain where life was effortless and rich and unrestricted and full of adventure and action, where something could be had for nothing. — Wallace Stegner

I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world

I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make you think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.

Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer. — Adrienne Rich

Poor Amy. I could tell she was suffering. Poor Thing. Life was so tough for the rich, beautiful and magical. — Elizabeth A. Reeves

I would rather live a joyful simple life, doing what I love, than to be unhappy and rich. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I would rather be kind and simple and poor than rude and rich. — Debasish Mridha

There are the two of you - the two sexes- to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I think that most of us [writers] would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich, we'd be doing smething else. — John Green

No, no. I understand that. And I quite agree with you. But you know I've always contended that the affections could be made to combine pleasure and profit. I wouldn't have a man marry for money,
that would be rather bad,
but I don't see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man shouldn't fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a poor one. Some of the rich girls are very nice, and I should — William Dean Howells

I think I would rather live on the verge of falling and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some pietistic illusion of moral excellence. Not that I don't want to be morally excellent but my faith isn't in the idea that I'm more moral than anybody else. My faith is in the idea that God and His love are greater than whatever sins any of us commit. — Rich Mullins

I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think. A rich man who happens to be intellectually honest, if he is questioned about the improvement of working conditions, usually says something like this: "We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. — George Orwell

I love him. Not because he's beautiful or because he's rich! I'd much rather he weren't either one. It would even out the gap between us just a little bit - because he'd still be the most loving and unselfish and brilliant and decent person I've ever met. Of course I love him. How hard is that to understand? — Stephenie Meyer

It had been a good day, all things considered. I had managed rather well on my own. I opened Grandfather's Bible. This is what it would be like when I had my own shop, or when I traveled abroad. I would always read before sleeping. One day, I'd be so rich I would have a library full of novel to choose from. But I would always end the evening with a Bible passage. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. — Woodrow Wilson

I would rather be rich affluent and greedy and go to hell when I die, than live in poverty on this earth. — Al Capone

Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the po0r rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said. — Shane Claiborne

There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I think most of us would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich we would be doing something else. — John Green

Prayer is a grace through which we pour ourselves out before God and through which He calls us into His presence. — Rich Mullins

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

We were tempted to have T-shirts made that said on the front: "We May Not Be Hip Enough To Drink Here, But We Are Rich Enough To Live Here," and on the back in larger letters: "Fuck Off Back To Clapham." Like giving the finger to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. — Simon Majumdar

His sisters
my aunts
did not go to school at all, just like millions of girls in my country. Education had been a great gift for him. He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan's problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected. He believed schooling should be available for all, rich and poor, boys and girls. The school that my father dreamed of would have desks and a library, computers, bright posters on the walls and, most important, washrooms. — Malala Yousafzai

I hate my country. There are so many rich people who don't share their shit. They're like spoiled little ten-year-old bullies on the playground. They hog the monkey bars and the slide and the seesaw. And if you complain even a little bit, if you try to get just one spin on the merry-go-round, the bullies beat the shit out of you. — Sherman Alexie

She danced with complete abandon. She never felt so light and free. She could stretch her arms forever, touch the heavens and pull down the stars. She would give him the stars to keep in his pocket, she thought. They would bring him good luck. She jumped and laughed and drew giggles from some of the other girls. She felt high, though she never before experienced a drug high. But then what was she thinking? He was her drug, and she felt high on the dark, rich honey. Honey that matched the color of his eyes. She could drink him to overflowing and never be satisfied. She was filled with the honey even now; it coursed through her limbs - a powerful, exotic, demanding potion that ordered her to dance. And so she did. She danced. — S. Walden

Anarchists are extreme libertarian socialists , "libertarian" meaning the demand for freedom from prohibition, and "socialist" meaning the demand for social equality ... Complete freedom implies equality, since if there are rich and poor, the poor cannot be permitted to take liberties with riches. Complete equality implies freedom, since those who suffer restrictions cannot be the equals of those who impose them. — Donald Rooum

The rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer, small farmers were being squeezed out, workingmen were working twelve hours a day for a bare living; profits were for the rich, the law was for the rich, the cops were for the rich; — John Dos Passos

Before the invention of photography, significant moments in the flow of our lives would be like rocks placed in a stream: impediments that demonstrated but didn't diminish the volume of the flow and around which accrued the debris of memory, rich in sight, smell, taste, and sound. No snapshot can do what the attractive mnemonic impediment can: when we outsource that work to the camera, our ability to remember is diminished and what memories we have are impoverished. — Sally Mann

Social psychology, the science of how people behave toward one another, is often a mishmash of interesting phenomena that are "explained" by giving them fancy names. Missing is the rich deductive structure of other sciences, in which a few deep principles can generate a wealth of subtle predictions - the kind of theory that scientists praise as "beautiful" or — Steven Pinker

The greatest astonishment of my life was the discovery that the man who does the work is not the man who gets rich — Andrew Carnegie

A rich man is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least. — Unknown

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard. — Henry David Thoreau

No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us. — Adrienne Rich

The United States is going to be a rich country, it is going to be prosperous, but it is not going to be able to take the lead in the next phase of global economic development. — Fareed Zakaria

Were you going to tell me you usually kiss your one-night trollops in private?
He laughed. The free-ringing sound held a spark of pure pleasure, unforced and rich with surprise. — Janny Wurts

Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls. — Charles Bukowski

All money represents theft ... To steal from the rich is a sacred and religious act. While looting, a man to his own self is true. — Jerry Rubin

I was nothing to them.
Just a toy, like Suit said. And they were like a bunch of bratty rich kids who knew that every toy was replaceable. — Skye Callahan

Good art can come out of thieves, bootleggers, or horse swipes. People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling. — William Faulkner

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money — W.C. Fields

The English language is damned difficult, but it's also damned rich, and so clear and bright that you can search out the darkest places with it. — Katherine Mansfield

Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost. — Plutarch

There is no fulfillment in things whatsoever. And I think one of the reasons that depression reigns supreme amongst the rich and famous is some of them thought that maybe those things would bring them happiness. But what, in fact, does is having a cause, having a passion. And that's really what gives life's true meaning. — Ben Carson

It is a rich storehouse for those who love quotations. It is as full of fine bon mots as a Christmas pudding is full of plums. — Fitz-Greene Halleck