Malefactors of great wealth.

We certainly have at present the dismal situation that the most imaginative men are directed by a group, the top managers, who are among the least.

While it must be admitted that the class of rich absentee owners or investors would doubtless be far less interested in industry if the profit motive were eliminated or subordinated, they represent the group that makes the smallest actual contribution to efficiency in industry.

Maybe no great man is virtuous. Or good. Perhaps a man rich in those qualities by definition is barred from greatness.

Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.

If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle

None of those who have been raised to a loftier height by riches and honours is really great.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,—a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,—if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions.

Tis bad, and may be better — all men’s lot:
Most men are slaves, none more so than the great,
To their own whims and passions, and what not;
Society itself, which should create
Kindness, destroys what little we had got

Some evil men would be less dangerous if there were no good in them at all.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.