“In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.”
Denis Diderot
“Virtue has never been as respectable as money”
Mark Twain
“The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices”
Benjamin Franklin
“Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.”
Confucius
“I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.”
“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue”
Moliere
