Other related topics at: Money 11. Procrastination; Wealth "...But I go on as I formerly did, designing to be some time or other both rich and wise; and yet cultivate neither mind nor fortune. Do you take notice of my example, and learn the danger of delay. When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am." Boswell: Life Link 41. Poverty; Wealth "When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune. -- So you hear people talking how miserable a King must be; and yet they all wish to be in his place." Boswell: Life Link 237. Happiness; Wealth [Entering the estate of Lord Scarsdale, Boswell describes a long list of assets indicating great wealth.] Boswell: "One should think that the proprietor of all this must be happy." Johnson: "Nay, Sir, all this excludes but one evil -- poverty." Boswell: Life Link 242. Life; Wealth "Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life." Boswell: Life Link 287. Hospitality; Wealth "No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality." Boswell: Life Link 375. Authority; Power; Wealth "When the power of birth and station ceases, no hope remains but from the relevence of money. Power and wealth supply the place of each other. Power confers the ability of gratifying our desire without the consent of others. Wealth enables us to obtain the consent of others to our gratification. Power, simply considered, whatever it confers on one, must take from another. Wealth enables its owner to give to others, by taking only from himself. Power pleases the violent and proud: wealth delights the placid and the timorous. Youth therefore flies at power, and age grovels after riches." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 377. Authority; Wealth "Money confounds subordination, by overpowering the distinctions of rank and birth, and weakens authority by supplying power of resistance, or expedients for escape. The feudal system is formed for a nation employed in agriculture, and has never long kept its hold where gold and silver have become common." Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland Link 597. Wealth "All that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness." Johnson: Rambler #38 (July 28, 1750) Link 674. Ambition; Effort; Wealth "It is true ... that many have neglected opportunities of raising themselves to honour and to wealth, and rejected the kindest offers of fortune; but, however their moderation may be boasted by themselves, or admired by such as only view them at a distance, it will be, perhaps, seldom found that they value riches less, but they dread labour or danger more than others; they are unable to rouse themselves to action, to strain in the race of competition, or to stand the shock of conquest; but though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy what they dare not seize." Johnson: Rambler #58 (October 6, 1750) Link 676. Wealth "Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if we suppose it put to its best use by those that possess it, seems not much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man." Johnson: Rambler #58 (October 6, 1750) Link 677. Wealth "Wealth cannot confer greatness, for nothing can make that great which the decree of nature has ordained to be little." Johnson: Rambler #58 (October 6, 1750) Link 678. Greed; Wealth "When ... the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon those whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced, that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude, or desired with eagerness." Johnson: Rambler #58 (October 6, 1750) Link 774. Consolation; Old Age; Wealth "The industry of man has ... not been wanting in endeavours to procure comforts for these hours of dejection and melancholy, and to gild the dreadful gloom with artificial light. The most usual support of old age is wealth. He whose possessions are large, and whose chests are full, imagines himself always fortified against invasions on his authority. If he has lost all other means of government, if his strength and his reason fail him, he can at last alter his will; and, therefore, all that have hopes must likewise have fears, and he may still continue to give laws to such as have not ceased to regard their own interest. This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of the dotard, the last fortress to which age retires, and in which he makes the stand against the upstart race that seizes his domains, disputes his commands, and cancels his prescriptions. But here, though there may be safety, there is no pleasure; and what remains is but a proof that more was once possessed." Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750) Link 813. Wealth "Money has much less power than is ascribed to it by those that want it." Johnson: Rambler #73 (November 27, 1750) Link 839. Wealth "It is impossible for those that have only known affluence and prosperity, to judge rightly of themselves or others. The rich and the powerful live in a perpetual masquerade, in which all about them wear borrowed characters; and we only discover in what estimation we are held, when we can no longer give hopes or fears." Johnson: Rambler #75 (December 4, 1750) Link 946. Boredom; Diversion; Idleness; Time; Wealth "Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and ... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. To set himself free from these incumbrences, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one pulls down his house and calls architects about him; another buys a seat in the country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through rivers; one makes collections of shells; and another searches the world for tulips and carnations." Johnson: Idler #30 (November 11, 1758) Link 1,000. Wealth "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money." Boswell: Life of Johnson Link 1,178. Greed; Wealth "Wealth is the general centre of inclination, the point to which all minds preserve an invariable tendency, and from which they afterwards diverge in numberless directions. Whatever is the remote or ultimate design, the immediate care is to be rich; and in whatever enjoyment we intend finally to acquiesce, we seldom consider it as attainable but by the means of money. Of wealth, therefore, all unanimously confess the value, nor is there any disagreement but about the use." Johnson: Rambler #131 (June 18, 1751) Link 1,179. Wealth "No desire can be formed which riches do not assist to gratify." Johnson: Rambler #131 (June 18, 1751) Link 1,256. Wealth "It commands the ear of greatness and the eye of beauty, gives spirit to the dull and authority to the timorous, and leaves him from whom it departs without virtue and understanding, the sport of caprice, the scoff of insolence, the slave of meanness, and the pupil of ignorance." Johnson: Rambler #153 (September 3, 1751) Link 1,336. Bias; Class; Poverty; Wealth "The eye of wealth is elevated towards higher stations, and seldom descends to examine the actions of those who are placed below the level of its notice, and who in distant regions and lower situations are struggling with distress, or toiling for bread. Among the multitudes overwhelmed with insuperable calamity, it is common to find those whom a very little assistance would enable to support themselves with decency, and who yet cannot obtain from near relations what they see hourly lavished in ostentation, luxury, or frolic." Johnson: Rambler #166 (October 19, 1751) Link 1,358. Class; Wealth "Nothing has been longer observed than that a change of fortune causes a change of manners." Johnson: Rambler #172 (November 9, 1751) Link 1,359. Power; Wealth "It is difficult to conjecture, from the conduct of him whom we see in a low condition, how he would act if wealth and power were put into his hands." Johnson: Rambler #172 (November 9, 1751) Link 1,360. Power; Wealth "It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation." Johnson: Rambler #172 (November 9, 1751) Link 1,400. Action/Inaction; Economy; Poverty; Wealth "The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will inevitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire must generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives must in time become indigent cannot be doubted; but how evident soever this consequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the intoxication of gaiety, grows every day poorer without any such sense of approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution." Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751) Link 1,444. Toadies; Wealth "...flatterers every one will find, who has the power to reward their assiduities. Wherever there is wealth there will be dependence and expectation, and wherever there is dependence there will be an emulation of servility." Johnson: Rambler #189 (January 7, 1752) Link 1,753. Appearances; Dress; Wealth "The most striking effect of riches is the splendour of dress, which every man has observed to enforce respect, and facilitate reception." (from the fictional "Tim Ranger") Johnson: Idler #62 (June 23, 1759) Link 1,775. Happiness; Satisfaction; Wealth "no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life." Johnson: Idler #73 (September 8, 1759) Link 1,777. Wealth "Every man eminent for exuberance of fortune is surrounded from morning to evening, and from evening to midnight, by flatterers, whose art of adulation consists in exciting artificial wants, and in forming new schemes of profusion." Johnson: Idler #73 (September 8, 1759) Link 1,814. Moral Instruction; Respect; Wealth "In civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most." James Boswell: Life of Johnson Link