The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.
Interpretation
Accumulating wealth can lead to a loss of personal depth and character.
Gore Vidal's quote suggests that the pursuit of wealth may result in a superficial life, where individuals prioritize material gain over meaningful experiences, interests, and relationships. This reflection highlights the idea that personal richness and depth are more valuable than financial success alone.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of character over wealth.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye.
The State lives by its very existence on the two-fold and pervasive employment of aggressive violence against the very liberty and property of individuals that it is supposed to be defending.
If two people agree, one of them is unnecessary.
It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
The laws of physics that we regard_x000D_ as 'sacred,' as immutable, are anything_x000D_ but.
Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant.
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