Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.
All the money in the world is no use to a man or his country if he spends it as fast as he makes it. All he has left is his bills and the reputation for being a fool.
Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
They call me eccentric. They used to call me nuts. I haven't changed. The only difference between being eccentric and being nuts is the number of security boxes you own.
The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.
So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it. They fail to live because they are always preparing to live.
As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I can not enter the ring on the money basis--first, because, in the main, it iswrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money. I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable.