QuoteProject
Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.
Mark Twain
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Extreme wealth and poverty can drive individuals to commit crimes related to money.

This quote by Mark Twain highlights the paradoxical relationship between wealth and crime, suggesting that both extreme poverty and extreme wealth can lead people to act immorally or commit crimes in pursuit of money. It speaks to the human condition and the moral dilemmas people face when they find themselves at either end of the economic spectrum, implying that societal pressures and inequalities can corrupt one's integrity and lead to illicit behavior.

Themes

PovertyWealthCrimeMoneyMorality

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about socioeconomic inequality, this quote can illustrate the correlation between wealth disparities and crime.

More from Mark Twain

Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
The easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead

Similar quotes

Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.
HeraclitusRead
I feel like someone after a deluge being asked to describe the way it was before the flood while I'm still plucking seaweed out of my hair.
Norman RushRead
I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.
Annie BesantRead
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
Margaret AtwoodRead
I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it's over, it's over.
Anne LamottRead
Tradition is the illusion of permanance.
Woody AllenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Mark Twain | QuoteProject