In her mind the U.S. was nothing more and nothing less than a país overrun by gangsters, putas, and no-accounts. Its cities swarmed with machines and industry, as thick with sinvergüencería as Santo Domingo was with heat, a cuco shod in iron, exhaling fumes, with the glittering promise of coin deep in the cold lightless shaft of its eyes.
Junot DíazTags: wealth united-states sin industry new-york-city machines u-s gangsters
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")
Tags: rich wealth society media television advertisements ads wealthy brainwashing tyrrany
Annie giggled again. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. And when she did, the most incredible thing happened. Alex’s grin vanished, and after gazing down at her for what seemed to her several endless seconds, he got tears in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. Only that, just a simple “thank you.” But to Annie, those were the two most wonderful words she’d ever seen spoken, and they meant more to her than a thousand others might have. With them, he told her a wealth of things, namely that he had meant everything he’d said to her in the attic, that he not only wouldn’t punish her for making noise, but that he wanted her to.
Catherine AndersonTags: wealth joy appreciation
Two hungry wolves let loose among sheep are not more harmful then a person craving after wealth and status is to his Deen (Religion).
Al-Haafidh Ibn Rajab Al-HanbaleeTags: wealth greed status avarice craving-for-wealth quotes-of-prophet-muhammad
There is nothing more to chasing after wealth than the wastage of a person’s noble life for that which has no value. Instead he could have earned a high rank (in Paradise) and everlasting bliss, but he lost this due to his craving after provision – which had already been assured to him and allotted to him, and it was not possible for anything to come to him except what was decreed for him – then on top of this he does not benefit from that, but rather abandons it and leaves it for someone else.
He departs from that and leaves it behind so that he will be the one held accountable for it, yet someone else benefits from it. So in reality he is only gathering it, yet someone
else benefits from it. So in reality he is only gathering it for someone who will not praise him for that, whilst he himself goes on to One who will not excuse him for that – this itself would indeed be enough to show the blameworthiness of this craving.
Tags: wealth greed status avarice islamic-literature sayings-of-prophet-muhammad
From the subtle afflictions caused by love of status is seeking after and aspiring positions of authority – this is something whose reality is hidden and obscure.
It is not understood except by those who have knowledge of Allah, those who love Him and who are at enmity with those ignorant ones from His creation who desire to compete with Him with regard to His Lordship and Divinity and right to worship, despite their despicability and the contemptible position they have before Allah and in the eyes of His chosen servants who have knowledge of Him.
Know that love of status attained by having one’s orders and prohibitions obeyed and enacted, and by merely the attainment of a position above the people and to have importance over
them, and that it be seen that the people are in need of him and seek their needs from him – then the soul of this person is seeking to compete with Allah in His Lordship and His Divinity and right to worship. Some such people may even seek to put the people into such a condition of need that they are compelled to request their needs from them, and to display their poverty before them and their need of them. Then he is inflated with pride and self-importance because of that, whereas this befits none except Allah alone.
Tags: wealth greed status avarice islamic-literature
Money may not be able to buy her love but it will definitely make her pay attention.
Habeeb AkandeTags: money love wealth relationships attention male-female-relationships
How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics.
Ziad K. AbdelnourLike every other good thing in this
world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however,
it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be
duly thankful for that, my dear Denis--duly thankful.
Tags: power wealth leisure humorous
Everything is mended by the soil.
Andrew CroftsTags: power wealth tyranny revolution gardens gardeners
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