“To bring back riches from the East you must bring riches with you.”

“It is better to live rich than to die rich.”

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.”

“Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.”

“Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.”

“Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!”

“I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.”