Quote of the Day (Vaclav Havel, on ‘A New Moral Effort’ vs. ‘The Dictatorship of Money’)

“The dictatorship of money, of profit, of constant economic growth, and the necessity, flowing from all that, of plundering the earth without regard for what will be left in a few decades, along with everything else related to the materialistic obsessions of this world, from the flourishing of selfishness to the need to evade personal responsibility by becoming part of the herd, and the general inability of human conscience to keep pace with the inventions of reason, right up to the alienation created by the sheer size of modern institutions—all of these are phenomena that cannot effectively be confronted except through a new moral effort, that is, through a transformation of the spirit and the human relationship to life and the world.” — Playwright, essayist, dissident, and first President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), “Paying Back the West,” The New York Review of Books, Sept. 23, 1999

Quote of the Day (Edith Wharton, on ‘The Only Way Not to Think About Money’)

“The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.” — Pulitzer Prize-winning American fiction writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937), The House of Mirth (1905)

The image accompanying this post comes from the very fine 2000 adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel, showing heroine Lily Bart (played by Gillian Anderson) with the confidante she shares this line with about money, the middle-class lawyer Lawrence Selden (played by Eric Stoltz).

Quote of the Day (Ayad Akhtar, on the 1980s and the Paramount Value of Money)

“The 1980s represented the time in our history when any other competing value besides money—because there have been other competing values—disappeared, and that’s why I’m writing about that era [in Junk]. The personal freedom to make as much money as I want, to buy whatever I want, became the only national value. And these libertarian ideals were embraced by both sides. But in the wake of that, everybody’s left on their own.” —Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar (Disgraced, Junk), interviewed by Adrienne Westenfeld, "ESQ IQ Money Talks: Ayad Akhtar,” Esquire, December 2017

The photo accompanying this post, of Ayad Akhtar at the 2012 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, was taken on Oct. 27, 2012 by Larry D. Moore.

Quote of the Day (Tracy Morgan, on His Christmas List)

“What I need for Christmas is another zero at the end of my paycheck."—Comedian Tracy Morgan, quoted in Clark Collis, “This Week We’re Talking About…Tracy Morgan,” Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 30, 2009

Don’t we all, Tracy…Don’t we all…

Except that, over the last decade, misfortune has taught you—not to mention hundreds of thousands of other Americans, under different circumstances—that other things are more important, chief among them staying alive.

(Photo of Tracy Morgan taken at New York City's Union Square Barnes & Noble to discuss his book I Am the New Black, Oct.22, 2009, by David Shankbone.)

Quote of the Day (Ross Macdonald, on the Cost of Money)

“ ‘What did the old man want?’

‘Your husband’s money, just like everyone else.’

‘But not you, eh?’ Her voice was sardonic.

‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Money costs too much.’”―American mystery novelist Ross Macdonald (1915-1983), The Goodbye Look (1963)

Quote of the Day (Socrates, on Why ‘Virtue is Not Given by Money’)

“I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, … either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”—Athenian philosopher Socrates (469 BC-399 BC), quoted by Plato, Apology, translated by Benjamin Jowett (1891)

We know Socrates for the line, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But neither, he makes plain here, is a shallow, materialistic one. 

That lesson has, of course, been forgotten in contemporary Washington, city of power, ambition, and the money that accrues to this. Another lesson, it seems, must also be learned all over again: that there are some principles worth staking one’s life for.

Quote of the Day (Nancy Mitford, on How to Marry for Love or Money)

“If I had a girl I should say to her, 'Marry for love if you can, it won't last, but it is a very interesting experience and makes a good beginning in life. Later on, when you marry for money, for heaven's sake let it be big money. There are no other possible reasons for marrying at all.”― English novelist, biographer and journalist Nancy Mitford (1904-1973), Christmas Pudding (1932)

TV Quote of the Day (‘30 Rock,’ In Which Jack Hears the Benefit of a Hot Business Tip)

Gavin Volure [an eccentric tycoon played by Steve Martin) to friend Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin): “You'll be so rich you can run for office without pretending to be a fundamentalist.”— 30 Rock, Season 3, Episode 4, “Gavin Volure,” original air date Nov. 20, 2008, teleplay by John Riggi, directed by Gail Mancuso

Well, this scenario played out for a real-life Member of the One Percent last year. Has it done America any good? Will it ever?

Quote of the Day (James Ellroy, Defining ‘Money’)

“It all came down to money—the great equalizer and common denominator.”— James Ellroy, The Big Nowhere (1988)

(Photo taken by Guillaume Paumier of James Ellroy at a book signing event in Toulouse's public media library "José Cabanis," France.)