A Quote by Ambrose Bierce
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
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I don't care about wealth. What seems to be upsetting is institutionalizing the advantages that wealth gives you.
If wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few, either by a feudal or a stock monopoly, it carries the power also; and a government becomes as certainly aristocratical, by a monopoly of wealth, as by a monopoly of arms. A minority, obtaining a majority of wealth or arms in any mode, becomes the government.
The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the creative is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death.
The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it's worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.
Praise is literal food for feminine qualities. If you want your woman to grow in her radiance health, happiness, love, beauty, power and depth, praise these qualities. Praise them daily. A number of times.
Society is purely and solely a continual series of exchanges... And the greatest eulogy we can give it, for exchange is an admirable transaction, in which two contracting parties always both gain; consequently, society is an uninterrupted succession of advantages, unceasingly renewed for all its members.
Nobility of birth is like a cipher; it has no power in itself, like wealth or talent; but, it tells with all the power of a cipher when added to either of the other two.
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.
Power is not of a man. Wealth does not center in the person of the wealthy. Celebrity is not inherent in any personality. To be celebrated, to be wealthy, to have power requires access to major institutions.
Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
Many people think in terms of either/or: either you're nice or you're tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that-to achieve that balance between courage and consideration-is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.
Patriotism is "a very definite feeling of preference for one's own people or State above all other peoples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people or State the greatest advantages and power that can be got - things which are obtainable only at the expense of the advantages and power of other peoples or States."
I sometimes think that the only person fit to inherit wealth is the person who doesn't need an inheritance - the person who would create his own fortune no matter what his start in life - and have come to view inherited wealth as an affliction.
The advantages of wealth are greatly exaggerated.
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