"It put our energies to sleep and..." - Quote by Mark Twain
It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us - dreamers and indolent... It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich - these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.
More by Mark Twain
“...nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people.”
“I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.”
“Great enterprises usually promise vastly more than they perform.”
More on Wealth
“If you want to earn more, learn more.”
“We like to read about rich people in the newspapers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed.”
“I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it”
More on Life
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
“That's the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”
“If nobody loved, the sun would go out.”