#wealthy

I emphasise it now; I had little-to-nothing in common with other people. Their values I did not comprehend, their ideals were to me a living horror. Call it ostentatious but I even sought to provide tangible proof of my withdrawal from the world. I posted a sign in the entrance to the building wherein I dwelt; a sign that indicated I had no wish to be disturbed by anyone, for any purpose whatsoever. As these convictions took hold of me and, as I denied, nay even repudiated, the hold that the current society of men possesses over its ranks, as I retreated into a hermitage of the imagination, disentangling my own concerns from those paramount to the age in which I happened to be born, an age with no claim to be more enlightened, significant or progressive than any other, I tried to make a stand for the spirit. Tyranny, in this land, I was told, was dead. But I contend that the replacement of one form of tyranny with another is still tyranny. The secret police now operate not via the use of brute force in dark underground cells; they operate instead by a process of open brainwashing that is impossible to avoid altogether. The torture cells are not secret; they are everywhere, and so ubiquitous that they are no longer seen for what they are. One may abandon television; one may abandon all forms of broadcast media, even the Internet, but the advertising hoardings in every street, on vehicles, inside transport centres, are still there. And they contain the same messages. Only the very rich can avoid their clutches utterly. Those who have obtained sufficient wealth may choose their own surroundings, free from the propaganda of a decayed futurity. And yet, and yet, in order to obtain such a position of freedom it is first necessary to have served the ideals of the tyranny slavishly, thereby validating it. ("The Tower") ↗

— Mark Samuels

#advertisements #brainwashing #media #rich #society

Coming from where I came from, it was unimaginable to ever be wealthy. That was just too far out of my reach. ↗

— Shania Twain

#coming #ever #far #i #i came

Our platform calls for a balanced deficit reduction plan where the wealthy pay their fair share. And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism. ↗

— Cory Booker

#asked #balanced #being #calls #class

If I hadn't become a golfer, I doubt I'd be wealthy, because I don't have the sort of ego that drives a person all day long. I might have wound up driving a tractor. ↗

— Fuzzy Zoeller

#because #become #day #doubt #drives

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so. ↗

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

#appeals #enormously #even #go #heroism

Wealthy women have rights in every country. And poor women don't. ↗

— Hillary Clinton

#every #poor #rights #wealthy #women

I think wealthy conservatives are busy investing in profit and job creation and enterprise, and wealthy liberals, many of them either from the media industry themselves or from - they recognize the value of communications and are more ready to put money into a less profitable enterprise, namely the media. ↗

— Karl Rove

#communications #conservatives #creation #either #enterprise

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy. ↗

— Michael Bloomberg

#back #because #breaks #cut #economic

If you go back to the time of J.P. Morgan, the world of high finance was completely wholesale. The prestigious investment banks on Wall Street appealed exclusively to large corporations, governments, and to extremely wealthy individuals. ↗

— Ron Chernow

#back #banks #completely #corporations #exclusively

If you travel around America you see different sections of highways donated by this or that person, and that's a slow beginning of what may end up being a situation common in the Third World: some sections of highways in wealthy areas are beautifully maintained and other parts are just dirt-strewn potholes. ↗

— Robert D. Kaplan

#areas #around #beautifully #beginning #being