For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other; and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.
A life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself.
When I was young, I used to think that wealth and power would bring me happiness... I was right.
Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. .
Does power bring happiness? Does it bring refinement? Does it bring humor? Does it bring a good-heartedness, or is it just cold? Power is never cold. Cold people may use power in cold ways.
Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness; for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation ofthe word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.
The word contentment comes from the word content, which is what we hold inside - love, value, a feeling of a life that has meaning or purpose, a cause greater than yourself that you're a part of. These are the things that bring true happiness. As a culture, I think we need to redefine what it means to be happy.
I live in the borderlands. The word ghost sounds like memory. The word therapy means exorcism. My visions echo and multiplymultiply. I don't know how to figure out what they mean. I can't tell where they start or if they will end. But I know this. If they shrink my head any more, or float me away on an ocean of pills, I will never return.
The Wickans know that the gift of power is never free. They know enough not to envy the chosen among them, for power is never a game, nor are glittering standards raised to glory and wealth. They disguise nothing in trappings, and so we all see what we'd rather not, that power is cruel, hard as iron and bone, and thrives on destruction. ~ Deadhouse Gates
Wealth, taste and leisure can bring many things but they do not bring happiness.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
I don't want to put happiness off to the future, because you never know what life will bring.
As long as we see America and her wealth as something that we want, we will never leave Pharaoh. As God's hand touched the wealth of Pharaoh, it is now touching the wealth of America. As the Black man and woman become more awakened to the wicked machinations of government, the aim is the same today: We should never be free of their influence and power.
And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know that I can do it.
Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
Life without hope, the slavery of mankind-a bondage so hopeless that slaves will no longer know they are slaves. Wealth without happiness, abundance without the power to enjoy it. The death of the spirit.