Explore Materialism quotations through time and change, attention and perspective, hope, loss, and renewal. Compare how different writers frame the idea across distinct works and periods.
“All that glisters is not gold.”
Appearance can imitate value without possessing it, so the line encourages evidence and discernment before admiration or trust.
Act 2, Scene 7; the inscription warns against judging by outward appearance.
“Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.”
Desired appearance should be tested against actual means before spending, placing affordability ahead of fashion or social comparison.
The Way to Wealth, frugality section; Project Gutenberg #43855. The line appears in a short verse warning against pride-driven spending on dress.
“do not confound what you possess with what you are.”
Possessions are separated from identity so that wealth can remain a tool or responsibility rather than becoming the measure of a person’s worth.
The Simple Life, later chapter on simple living and wealth, Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; Wagner distinguishes possession from personal identity.
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
Thoreau places truth above three powerful human desires, making the sentence a compact statement of intellectual and moral priority.
Walden, Conclusion; Thoreau closes the book by contrasting outward wealth and status with the inner quality of a person’s life.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
The distinction between price and value criticizes a way of thinking that can measure cost while missing significance.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890 Lippincott magazine text, Chapter 3; Lord Henry gives the price-and-value epigram after describing a bargain for old brocade.
“the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.”
Wollstonecraft warns that replacing hereditary rank with concentrated economic power does not automatically secure meaningful liberty.
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Letter XIV; represented Cassell & Company 1889 text in Project Gutenberg #3529. After arguing that commerce helped England and America undermine feudal power, Wollstonecraft warns that “the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.” This remains historical political-economic reflection within the travel letters rather than present-day financial or legal guidance.
“The real comforts of life cost but a small portion of what most of us can earn.”
The sentence distinguishes basic comfort from status consumption, arguing that many discretionary expenses arise from luxury and comparison rather than necessity.
The Art of Money Getting, expense-account discussion; Project Gutenberg #8581. This is Barnum’s historical generalization about comfort and spending, not a modern cost-of-living statistic.
“Prosperity is a more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity.”
Sudden financial improvement can test restraint because rising income may encourage equally rapid expansion of spending, display, and recurring obligations.
The Art of Money Getting, economy section; Project Gutenberg #8581. Barnum introduces the line while describing lifestyle expansion after financial success.
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
Poverty is reframed as uncontrolled desire rather than a simple measure of possessions, making appetite itself central to the experience of not having enough.
Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.
“Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.”
Volpone’s opening worship of his hoarded gold immediately turns wealth into an object of devotion, establishing the comedy’s satire of avarice.
Volpone, Act I, Scene 1, Project Gutenberg #4039. Volpone opens the comedy by greeting his gold as a saint while Mosca reveals the hoard; the religious imagery establishes his avarice. It is fictional dramatic speech, not Ben Jonson autobiography, financial advice or a literal religious claim.
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
Real richness is measured by freedom from unnecessary wants rather than by the number of possessions a person accumulates.
Walden, chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”; wealth is reframed through reduced dependence.
“This is not wealth, but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to acquire.”
Carnegie distinguishes an adequate level of savings and family provision from the very large surplus fortunes that are the subject of his essay.
The Gospel of Wealth, first essay; 1889 North American Review text. Carnegie explicitly separates ordinary competence needed for family maintenance and education from the concentrated surplus wealth his argument addresses.
“Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.”
Money is framed as useful when directed toward chosen purposes but harmful when debt, interest, or appetite begins directing the person instead.
The Art of Money Getting, “Avoid Debt”; Project Gutenberg #8581. Barnum uses the servant-and-master metaphor while contrasting interest working for versus against the borrower.
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.”
The real price of a possession includes the hours and attention required to obtain and maintain it.
Walden, “Economy”; wording lightly normalized from the surrounding sentence.
“Riches I hold in light esteem, And Love I laugh to scorn; And lust of fame was but a dream, That vanished with the morn.”
The speaker strips wealth, romantic attachment and fame of ultimate authority in order to define freedom through an inwardly independent stance.
“The Old Stoic,” in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; Project Gutenberg #1019. The poem uses a deliberately severe persona and should not be treated as a complete ethical system.
“Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.”
Seneca gives wealth a stopping rule: secure necessities, then recognize sufficiency instead of allowing desire to expand without limit.
Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 2.
“it is manifestly a wiser course to aim at the maintenance of our health and the cultivation of our faculties, than at the amassing of wealth”
Schopenhauer contrasts cultivating personal capacities with treating accumulation as the main aim, placing development of the person above wealth as a measure of a good life.
The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The sentence belongs to a philosophical comparison of personality, possessions and reputation, not financial advice.
“Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniencies, and amusements of human life.”
Smith defines economic command in terms of access to goods and services rather than the mere possession of coins, linking wealth with purchasing capacity.
The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter V; Project Gutenberg #3300. The historical spelling “conveniencies” is retained; this is classical political economy, not a modern household-wealth metric.
“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance.”
Carnegie pairs possession of great wealth with restraint in personal display, arguing that surplus resources create duties beyond conspicuous consumption.
The Gospel of Wealth, first essay; 1889 North American Review text. The excerpt begins Carnegie’s longer description of what he believes wealthy people owe to dependents and community.
“For what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions”
Schopenhauer ranks enduring personal qualities above possessions, placing character and inner resources closer to the center of life than external ownership.
The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The sentence continues by contrasting inner qualities with social reputation.
“October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”
The list reveals that every month is dangerous, turning what sounds like seasonal financial advice into a satire on speculative risk and the false hope that timing alone makes gambling safe.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph; the stock-market joke follows the reflection on disagreeable people.
Life-oriented quotations range across time, change, hope, memory, nature, happiness, loss, and the ordinary decisions that gradually become a life.
Compare lines that point toward different definitions of a good life. The most useful quotation is often the one that names a tradeoff clearly rather than the one that sounds universally uplifting.
These routes are drawn from the quotations loaded on this page and are meant as starting points, not extra topic labels.
Concise lines for readers who want the core idea without a long passage.
Quotations connected with deeper interpretation, perspective, philosophy, or sustained thought.
Older works represented in the collection, useful for comparing how the topic changes across time.
