Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

It seems the more money they have the less they think of God.

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.

Were we not getting a larger and larger class interested only in what money would buy? Particularly did I dislike the spreading belief that wealth piled up by a combination of ability, illegality, and bludgeoning could be so used as to justify itself-that the good to be done would cancel the evil done. What it amounted to was the promotion of humanitarianism at the expense of Christian ethics; and that, I believe, made for moral softness instead of stoutness.

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought,

“I see you’re not quite the moralist, after all.”
“A pragmatist will grow fat while a moralist starves,” Wilkins said.

Your moral scruples may be admirable, Miles, but I’m not sure I can afford them.

when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none.

What you’re saying is that if someone pays you enough, it’s okay to abandon what you have claimed to understand as moral and right.

I think we have become even more unequal. One time you could have a conversation about putting it right, but sadly today, a lot of it has still to do with money then since.

The things you spend so much time on — all this work you do — might not seem as important. You might have to make room for some more spiritual things.

Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.

It seems to me that just in the ratio that our newspapers increase, our morals decay.