Opening the book…
Opening the book…
Explore how different traditions approach the same question, from the oldest texts to the screen and the present day. Connections suggest similarities in meaning, not proven influence. Dates describe broad periods of a tradition, rather than the age of each passage.
“When did your relationship with money change? What happened, and what do you do differently now?”
Security, desire, generosity, and the meaning we give to wealth.
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, and the parables. Foundational to Western moral language.
“He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.”
“There is no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces; he who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise.”
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be als…”
“Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.”
Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads — dialogues on duty, action, and self.
“The sacrifice which Knowledge pays is better than great gifts Offered by wealth, since gifts' worth--O my Prince!-- Lies in the mind which gives, the will that serves.”
Krishna compares the inner sacrifice of knowledge and intention to mere material giving.
“Whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for it--perhaps something from himself for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps in genera…”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 220, tr. Helen Zimmern, 1907 ↗
“Ensnared / In nooses of a hundred idle hopes, / Slaves to their passion and their wrath, they buy / Wealth with base deeds, to glut hot appetites.”
Krishna describes those consumed by desire and anger, who pursue wealth through corrupt means.
“THE DESIRE of increasing riches occupieth you, Till ye come to the grave.”
Tao Te Ching, attributed to Laozi — terse, paradoxical aphorisms on living with the grain of things.
“They shall wear elegant and ornamented robes, carry a sharp sword at their girdle, pamper themselves in eating and drinking, and have a superabundance of property and wealth;--such (princes) may be called robbers and boasters. This is contrary to the Tao surely!”
Laozi condemns rulers who live in luxury while their people suffer from empty granaries and neglected fields.
“They will do; but they are not equal to him, who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, loves the rules of propriety.”
“It is the Way of Heaven to diminish superabundance, and to supplement deficiency. It is not so with the way of man. He takes away from those who have not enough to add to his own superabundance.”
Laozi contrasts the natural balance of the Tao with the exploitative habits of human rulers and the wealthy.
“The superior man may indeed have to endure want, but the mean man, when he is in want, gives way to unbridled license.”
Dhammapada and selected sutras — terse, principle-rich verses on suffering, attachment, and right action.
“"One is the road that leads to wealth, another the road that leads to Nirvana;" if the Bhikshu, the disciple of Buddha, has learnt this, he will not yearn for honour, he will strive after separation from the world.”
A Bhikshu is a Buddhist monk; Nirvana here means liberation from suffering and desire.
“There is no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces; he who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise.”
“How little is requisite to supply the necessities of nature? And in a view to pleasure, what comparison between the unbought satisfaction of conversation, society, study, even health and the common beauties of nature, bu…”
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section preceding Appendix I, 1751 ↗
Analects of Confucius — sayings on conduct, governance, and moral cultivation.
“To be poor without murmuring is difficult. To be rich without being proud is easy.”
“Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.”
Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Riches, 1625 ↗
“Riches and honours are what men desire. If it cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should not be held. Poverty and meanness are what men dislike. If it cannot be avoided in the proper way, they should not be avoided.”
“Believe not much, them that seem to despise riches; for they despise them, that despair of them; and none worse, when they come to them.”
Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Riches, 1625 ↗
Greco-Roman school of practical philosophy on virtue, agency, and acceptance. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca.
“A man might have applied that to him, which is recorded of Socrates, that he knew how to want, and to enjoy those things, in the want whereof, most men show themselves weak; and in the fruition, intemperate: but to hold out firm and constant, and to keep within the compass of true moderation and sobriety in either esta…”
Aurelius praises his adoptive father Antoninus Pius by comparing his temperance to that of Socrates.
“'Do you desire,' said Socrates, 'the reputation of a good musician? The only sure way of obtaining it, is to become a good musician... And in the same manner if you would be reckoned sober, temperate, just, and equitable…”
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Ch. II (Socrates quotation), 1759 ↗
“Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shall ever constrain thee either to break thy faith, or to lose thy modesty; to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils.”
“Do not despise any man, and do not discriminate against anything, for there is no man that has not his hour, and there is no thing that has not its place.”
Pirkei Avot, 4:3, tr. Joshua Kulp, Mishnah Yomit (Sefaria, CC-BY) ↗
Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) — concise principles for living, distilled from the early rabbinic period.
“He that borrows from man is as one who borrows from God, blessed be He, as it is said, 'the wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous deal graciously and give.'”
Rabbi Shimon, answering which evil way a person should shun, singles out borrowing without repaying.
“And of whose substance there is a due and stated portion For him who asketh, and for him who is ashamed to beg.”
“There are four types of charity givers. He who wishes to give, but that others should not give: his eye is evil to that which belongs to others; He who wishes that others should give, but that he himself should not give: his eye is evil towards that which is his own; He who desires that he himself should give, and that…”
“Who giveth away his substance that he may become pure; And who offereth not favours to any one for the sake of recompense, But only as seeking the face of his Lord the Most High.”
Central scripture of Islam. Ethical teachings, parables, and prophetic narratives.
“Woe to every Backbiter, Defamer! Who amasseth wealth and storeth it against the future! He thinketh surely that his wealth shall be with him for ever.”
A sharp warning against those who slander others and hoard wealth, imagining money to be a permanent protection.
“money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”
Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Of Seditions and Troubles, 1625 ↗
“THE DESIRE of increasing riches occupieth you, Till ye come to the grave.”
The surah opens with a stark observation about how the pursuit of wealth consumes a human life until death.
Montaigne and Bacon turning the essay into a way of thinking in public — sceptical, personal, unwilling to settle a question it has not tested.
“money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”
Bacon is arguing against the concentration of wealth in few hands as a danger to the state.
“A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or marble, except to a trifling extent.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, Economy, 1854 ↗
“RICHES are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
Hume, Smith, Kant and Wollstonecraft asking what we owe each other once reason, rather than revelation, is asked to supply the answer.
“How little is requisite to supply the necessities of nature? And in a view to pleasure, what comparison between the unbought satisfaction of conversation, society, study, even health and the common beauties of nature, but above all the peaceful reflection on one's own conduct; what comparison, I say, between these and…”
Hume contrasts simple, natural pleasures with the hollow satisfactions of wealth and luxury.
“The parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no more have th…”
“The vain man sees the respect which is paid to rank and fortune, and wishes to usurp this respect, as well as that for talents and virtues. His dress, his equipage, his way of living, accordingly, all announce both a higher rank and a greater fortune than really belong to him; and in order to support this foolish impos…”
Smith describes the practical self-destruction that follows from living beyond one's means to project a false image.
“In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the indivi…”
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter III, paragraph 6, 1859 ↗
Emerson, Thoreau and Douglass in New England and beyond — self-reliance, conscience against the state, and the moral weight of a life lived deliberately.
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.”
Thoreau critiques the strategy of deferring one's true life until after wealth is accumulated.
“There is no more thriftless proceeding than to try and mend the measured pace of Time. Be careful, then, not to become its debtor.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Section 49, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗
“It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”
“The more a man has in himself, the less others can be to him. The feeling of self-sufficiency! it is that which restrains those whose personal value is in itself great riches, from such considerable sacrifices as are dem…”
Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, § on self-sufficiency, tr. T. Bailey Saunders, 1890 ↗
Mill, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, each pressing on what an individual owes to the crowd, to suffering, and to their own honesty.
“To be poor when one is old, is a great misfortune. If a man is secure from that, and retains his health, old age may be a very passable time of life.”
Schopenhauer identifies the two prerequisites — financial security and health — for old age to be endurable rather than wretched.
“Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those whose means do not come up to the augmented price; and to those who do, it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste. Their choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State a…”
Mill is examining whether the state may use taxation to discourage consumption of stimulants like alcohol.
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishe…”
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture on Mysticism (alcohol passage), 1902 ↗
James, Du Bois, Vivekananda and Tagore — psychology, pragmatism and the first modern accounts of living inside more than one world at once.
“A pall of debt hangs over the beautiful land; the merchants are in debt to the wholesalers, the planters are in debt to the merchants, the tenants owe the planters, and laborers bow and bend beneath the burden of it all.”
Du Bois describes the economic structure of Dougherty County, Georgia, in the post-Reconstruction South.
“But he is seldom encouraged to save.”
Du Bois notes that Black tenant farmers are actively steered toward spending rather than accumulation by merchants who profit from their debt.
The century in which the question was most often put to a wide audience by film. Each line belongs to a larger story, and is quoted with its character, film, and writing credits where available.
“It's no trick to make a lot of money if all you want is to make a lot of money.”
Kane's loyal general manager, told that Kane made an awful lot of money, separates getting money from wanting anything worth having.
Written by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.
“Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”
Written in a book left for a man who has just measured his life in money and found it worth more dead than alive.
Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Frank Capra.
“How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough?”
Bud finally asks Gekko the question that the older man's philosophy cannot answer: where accumulation ends.
Written by Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser.
“I could have got more.”
At the end, a man who spent a fortune buying lives can only see the lives the remaining objects would have bought.
Written by Steven Zaillian.
“The things you own end up owning you.”
An argument that possessions are not neutral — that past a point the relationship reverses.
Written by Jim Uhls.
“There is no nobility in poverty.”
Belfort presents wealth as rescue from suffering; the film lets the damage of that creed supply the rebuttal.
Written by Terence Winter.
The same question, answered by people who are still working it out.
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