Quotes About Wealth

"Affluence will fade in the world. It will be lost by many people. The human need will become so great that it will call upon people everywhere to serve and to participate. The ship is already taking on water, you see. It is already beginning to list to one side. Those who know this are being called to respond, to prepare themselves and to see where their contribution can be of the greatest benefit."

"Wealth is investing yourself in that which yields the greatest benefit for yourself and others."

Directives

"If you have a lot of money, become a benefactor. Give money to worthy people and worthy endeavors. The only value for having wealth is to be able to give it away."

"The wealthy will have to take care of people."

"If you are wealthy, you may need to feed a hundred people or five hundred people."

"Your richest person in the world should take care of thousands of people—feed them and provide for them!"

"Take 20% of your wealth and spend it on taking care of people."

"Own fewer things of higher quality."

"Do not ask anything of the world save what few material things you need to fulfill your function. This is a small request in light of what you have come to give. And if your demands are not in excess of what you need, the world will gladly render them to you in exchange for a greater gift which you possess."

True wealth and apparent wealth

"The rich may chase their dreams and dress themselves up, but inside they are living in poverty."

"The power of force, the power of wealth, the attractions of beauty and charm ultimately cannot compete or compare with God's Power and Presence."

"Here the poor are often more rich in spirit than the rich themselves, who have a great competing agenda differing from their primary purpose and function of being in the world.... The power of force, the power of wealth, the attractions of beauty and charm ultimately cannot compete or compare with [God's Power and Presence]."

"Your real wealth is discovered through the reclamation of Knowledge. It is not counted in how many assets, friends and pleasures you have acquired in life. All of these are constantly threatened and are easily lost. But the reclamation of Knowledge cannot be lost unless it is neglected or denied, and even then it will abide with you and go with you wherever you go."

“You need not be poor, for poverty is not of your heritage nor of your true destiny. Do not be poor today, for Knowledge is the great wealth, and once it is allowed to emerge within any mind, it begins to generate its presence naturally in the world. It begins to balance and harmonize the mind that is its vehicle, and it begins to give specifically to certain individuals in certain ways. This is the genius that is with you.”

"As long as you are drawn by beauty, wealth, and charm, you do not yet have the discernment to see what is really meaningful and important. If you have never really felt a deep connection with another, do not think it is not possible and meant for you.

"You have a greater destiny in the world, and there are others who are part of this destiny and who will play a significant role in its discovery and expression. This is an article of faith for you now, for not all your needs can be met in this moment, nor should they be met.

"You have to have a sound relationship with your mind and your body. You have to develop your health. You have to develop your Pillar of Work. You have so many things to do now to build your foundation in life. You have the Steps to Knowledge to take to build your connection with Knowledge. No one should be pining away for a relationship when they have all of this work to do to build their foundation."

Hazards of acquisition

"Understand, then, the meaning of impoverishment. Understand, then, the meaning of wealth. Do not think that those who possess more objects than you are in any way wealthier than you are, for without Knowledge they are impoverished and will acquire things only to offset their misery and uncertainty. Thus, their impoverishment is compounded by their acquisition."

"How many saints have arisen from the slums and the wretched conditions of humanity? Poverty is a better breeding ground for sainthood than wealth and affluence."

"The wealthy are far more deluded than the poor. They are far more distracted. They are far more seduced. They have far greater attachments to things of little value than do the poor."

"Has it not been curious to you that as your life becomes easier, you lose vitality?"

"The highly educated, the highly sophisticated—people who indulge themselves in ideas and beliefs and social trends—have a great difficulty, whereas a simple poor person can respond more immediately. It is a curious thing that the more that people have and pretend to be, the more difficult it is for them to have this clarity, this simplicity, and this honesty."

"People who give themselves to accumulating wealth and accumulating possessions find a great emptiness there, as if they were hollow on the inside. Now they become caretakers of their possessions, as if they were museum keepers of all the things they have collected in their lives, but as individuals they are hollow. There is nothing inspiring about them. There is nothing really important that has come out of them. They have not found their greater purpose in the world."

"Goaded by the fear of poverty and deprivation, people are driven to seek endless amounts of wealth and reassurance for themselves. This is pervasive in the world. This is the condition of the human family. This is the 'state of the union' for the human family. And all of the addictions, all of the depression, all of the poor mental and physical health you see around you is a product of this desperation and this disassociation that people have with themselves and with the greater purpose that has brought them into the world."

The imperative of cooperation

In dire straits

“You will not have the wealth or the social power to do the things perhaps you could do before, if you were living in an affluent nation. People do not make this association. They do not see that plundering their world’s resources is actually creating the very set of circumstances that will rob them of their personal freedoms and advantages.”

"The very rich will have to give up their very silly little games, their indulgences and addictions, to really get out and help people. Otherwise, they too will be overthrown. The anger towards the rich will become so severe that the rich will have nowhere to run in the future if the world goes out of control."

"The richest amongst you must be prepared to take care of people, for there will be great human need in the future, greater than you have known, greater than that occurs even at the moment. Your richest person in the world should take care of thousands of people—feed them and provide for them. You have already destroyed their livelihood. It is impossible now for them to farm their land. Their local resources have been depleted, the land has been set to waste, so it is now your job to feed them and take care of them. That will be your job. And if you are to generate more wealth, it will be for this purpose."

"There must be a great sharing here, a great compassion here. Here you do not throw the poor some pittance, some little excess of your wealth. For there will be poverty of a very grave nature as nations fail, as agriculture fails, as people cannot afford their food, as essential energy becomes rare and inaccessible to many people. Take 20% of your wealth and spend it on taking care of people. That is what the future will require if humanity is to have stability and if humanity is to avoid the ravages of war and deprivation, hunger and starvation."

For redemption of purpose

"What can God do for you but encourage you to be of service to others? That is the redemption for the wealthy. They have given themselves to their pursuit of power, pleasure and recognition, but God gives them the opportunity to serve others. Not just to give some little portion of their wealth as a charity, but to give the bulk of their wealth to serve a real set of needs in the world. That is the path of redemption. Even if they missed their calling earlier in life, this will redeem them—service, selfless service, born of a deeper inner need, not as an attempt to quell guilt or inadequacy, but as something that naturally emerges from within them."

“Here it is all right to be wealthy as long as you are willing to give away most of your wealth, to become a benefactor. For beyond your basic needs, why have all this wealth? For prestige? To impress others? To use it as a social power? To overtake others? Money becomes a god and a demon when it ceases to merely be a useful tool. Therefore, all the wealthy people should be benefactors. That is their role and responsibility. That is what will redeem them and prevent them from thinking that their wealth is their real value.”

For the sake of sustainability

"Someone else’s life must be degraded to provide what you want at the price that you want to pay. You may think you are employing the world to meet your uncontrolled desires, but what you are really doing is destroying cultures and enslaving other people in conditions that you yourself would never tolerate or condone."

"If you are wealthy, give generously to those who are securing the diversity and the health of the natural environment, for this is the environment that is sustaining everyone. Do not simply be like a locust upon the land, devouring everything in sight only to perish in the end when the food is depleted."

See also

Poverty