#om

Do you understand what I'm saying?" shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!" "Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm. "What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?" "I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly. "I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!" "No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#cruelty #death #justice #life #philosophy

I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice. 'If you could change one thing, what would it be?' He pulled the sheep pendant from his pocket. A question filled his eyes. I held out my hand. Riley placed it in my palm and I curled my finger around the necklace, pressing the metal into my skin. ↗

— Maria V. Snyder

#regret #change

You think money can solve any problem, but all it s good for is buying the things it can, and leaving you free to pursue the things it can't. ↗

— Ann Herendeen

#wisdom #money

For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organisations.... Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#failure #flaws #promise #success #money

I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know). ↗

— Anthony Hope

#money #sufficiency #money

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman. ↗

— James M. Cain

#money #murder #noir #women #money

That's why Credit card companies are evil. Are they sponsoring the show tonight? ... They are Evil. ↗

— Craig Ferguson

#credit #evil #money #money

Taking in money, banks were like industrial vacuum cleaners. Giving it out, they were clogged faucets ↗

— Dean Koontz

#money

Money brings you the women you want, struggle brings you the women you need. ↗

— Habeeb Akande

#money #women #money

Whenever a state or an individual cited 'insufficient funds' as an excuse for neglecting this important thing or that, it was indicative of the extent to which reality had been distorted by the abstract lens of wealth. During periods of so-called economic depression, for example, societies suffered for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost invariably disclosed that there were plenty of goods available. Plenty of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What was missing was not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called 'money.' It was akin to a starving woman with a sweet tooth lamenting that she couldn't bake a cake because she didn't have any ounces. She had butter, flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, she just didn't have any ounces, any pinches, any pints. The loony legacy of money was that the arithmetic by which things were measured had become more valuable than the things themselves. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#economic-depression #money #recessions #wealth #money