July 31

If Christians followed their law, no one would be rich or poor.

1

Behold, one came to him and said, “Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

— Matthew 19:16, 21

2

A rich person can be insensitive and indifferent to another’s sorrow.

— The Talmud

3

Rich and poor are correlatives of each other; the existence of a class of rich involving the existence of a class of poor, and the reverse; and abnormal luxury on the one side and abnormal want on the other have a relation of necessary sequence. The rich are the robbers, and the poor are the robbed. This is the reason, I take it, why Christ always expressed sympathy with the poor and repugnance of the rich. In the kingdom of right-doing which He preached, rich and poor would be impossible.

— Henry George

4

Avarice is frightening, truly frightening; it shuts ours eyes and ears, makes us more ferocious than animals, letting us think neither of our conscience, nor friendship, nor communion, nor the salvation of our own souls, but, having taken everything away, it makes people its slaves. And the worst thing about this bitter slavery is that it forces people to enjoy being a slave, such that the more people yield to it, the more they enjoy it. This is the chief reason why this illness is often incurable, this is why this beast cannot be tamed.

— John Chrysostom

5

A community composed of the very rich and the very poor falls easy prey to whoever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit and intelligence enough to resist; the very rich have too much at stake.

— Henry George

6

Wealth is like manure, it stinks when it is all in one pile, but, when it is scattered, it fertilizes the land.

How intensely darkened must be the moral feelings of a person who, in a Christian society amid thousands in need, is proud of his wealth.