#money

I can’t do that,” he said, exhaling sharply and staring out the glass into the street. “Why not?” His face softened. “I need his money.” Spencer looked at me and I couldn’t help but stare back. We were all in the same boat, prisoners to GREED. ↗

— Fisher Amelie

#sophie #spencer #vain #money

Tangier is more New York than New York. ... Then you must see how alike the two places are. The life revolves wholly about the making of money. Practically everyone is dishonest. In New York you have Wall Street, here you have the Bourse. ... In New York you have the slick financiers, here the money changers. In New York you have your racketeers. Here you have your smugglers. And you have every nationality and no civic pride. ↗

— Paul Bowles

#tangier #money

The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion. The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability. ↗

— Herodotus

#athenians #compulsion #persuasion #poverty #money

The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. ↗

— Neal Stephenson

#money

In the real world, babysitting is a groovy way for young people to learn responsibility (and earn a little pocket money). In the Terrorverse, it's a plot device used to kill teenagers. ↗

— Seth Grahame-Smith

#horror #money

money appears to motivate only our interest in ourselves, making us selfish and self-centered...Money makes people feel self-sufficient, which also means they don't need or care about others; it's each man for himself ↗

— Margaret Heffernan

#money #money

A growing body of work in social psychology offers a possible explanation for this commercialization effect. These studies highlight the difference between intrinsic motivations (such as moral conviction or interest in the task at hand) and external ones (such as money or other tangible rewards). When people are engaged in an activity they consider intrinsically worthwhile, offering them money may weaken their motivation by depreciating or "crowding out" their intrinsic interest or commitment. ↗

— Michael J. Sandel

#money

If your motives aren't clean, money itself becomes evil. But When we don't have money enough evil, the world tells us we're losers. So what determines our place in society is not how much kindness is in our hearts but how much evil is in our wallet. ↗

— Todd McFarlane

#money

In the English language, we have one word for love, which translates into our sexual drive. The ancient Greeks had more than one word for it, including the word agape. It means to compromise or sacrifice, and it’s a kind of love I’ve seen in all couples who have gotten married and stayed married. It is my opinion that this kind of love determines the entire success of your married life, and to an extent, it’s a good part of your financial life too. Reaching a financial goal always takes a little bit of sacrifice, and would be impossible to do on your own. Once you and your spouse realize that mutual sacrifice is a healthy part of your marriage, you are well on your way to achieving harmony in planning for your finances together. ↗

— Celso Cukierkorn

#marriage #money #life

In the days when I was ambitious I worked out a very pretty little plan for conquering the whole earth and rearranging things as they out to be; and when, in the end, everything became so good it almost began to be boring, then I was going to stuff my pockets with as much money as I could lay hands on and creep away, vanish in some cosmopolis and sit at a corner cafe and drink absinthe and enjoy seeing how everything went to the devil as soon as I wasn't on the scene any more. ↗

— Hjalmar Söderberg

#ambition #global-domination #money