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Quote by Alexander McCall Smith

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The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds

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Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith, born on August 24, 1948, is a renowned Scottish writer known for his light-hearted and thoughtful writing style. His most famous works include the 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series, which has gained him a wide readership around the world. more

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“Because I needed these riches, fucking ached for them. Not because I had some poor, sick grandmama to look after or any nonsense like that. No, I needed riches for the best reason of all. Because I wanted them. I wanted the freedom they granted and the luxuries they provided. I hated the people who had so damn much because I was determined to prove that I was better than them, and I would do it in the simplest way I knew how – by being the man who had more.”

InspirationalMoney
Book:A Game of Malice and Greed
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“As bills shuffled like playing cards, Bernice thought of how she'd earned each dollar, all the weeks and months and years spent as librarian of the Savage Crossing Public Library; all the library checkout cards stamped with due dates, the books shelved and reshelved, the late fees waived. Pride swelled beneath her breastbone, not because she'd soon be walking around with money in her purse, but because during her career she had introduced reluctant readers to perfect books at least a few times. Such a simple act could sometimes be life-changing.”

MoneyBooksLibrarianReaders
Book:Bernice Runs Away
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“I'm a businessman. And I want you to be a businessman. And whenever you go to these meeting, I want you to think for yourself, and I want you to think about promoting your own interests no matter what. All these people - both the Japanese and the Koreans - are fucked because they keep thinking about the group. But here's the truth: There's no such thing as a benevolent leader. I protect you because you work for me. If you act like a fool and go against my interests, then I can't protect you. As for these Korean groups, you have to remember that no matter what, the men who are in charge are just men - so they're not much smarter than pigs. And we eat pigs. You lived with that farmer Tamaguchi who sold sweet potatoes for obscene prices to starving Japanese during a time of war. He violated wartime regulations, and I helped him, because he wanted money and I do, too. He probably thinks he's a decent, respectable Japanese, or some kind of proud nationalist - don't they all? He's a terrible Japanese, but a smart businessman. I'm not a good Korean, and I'm not Japanese. I'm ver good at making money. This country would fall apart if everyone believed in samurai crap. The Emperor does not give a fuck about anyone, either. So I'm not going to tell you not to go to any meetings or not to join any group. But know this: Those communists don't care about you. They don't care about anybody. You're crazy if you think they care about Korea.”

PoliticsMoneyCapitalism
Book:Pachinko
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“Bunch of Quotes … Legend: #/ = page number 12/ Money as Archetype. The key point is that money must have power over us inwardly in order to have power in the world. We must believe in its value before we will change our conduct based on whether or not we will receive it. In the broadest sense, money becomes a vehicle of relationship. It enables us to make choices and cooperate with one another, it singlas what we will do with our energy. 16/ The Latin word moneta derives from the Indo-European root men-, which means to use one’s mind or think. The goddess Moneta is modeled on the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. Contained in the power to remember is the ability to warn, so Moneta is also considered to be a goddess who can give warnings. To suggest money can affect us in different ways we might remember that the Greek words menos (which means spirit, courage, purpose) and mania (which means madness) come from the same root as memory and Moneta. Measurement, from the Indo-European root me-, also relates to mental abilities and is a crucial aspect of money. 95/ [Crawford relates the experience of a friend], a mother, whose only son suffered from drug addiction. … At last she overcame her motherly instincts and refused him a place to stay and food and money. [She gave him a resources list for dealing with addiction.] 98/ Even an addition, according to psychologist C.G. Jung, a form of spiritual craving. Jung expressed this viewpoint in correspondence with Bill Wilson (Bill W), the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. 107/ The inner search is not a denial of our outer needs, but rather in part a way of learning the right attitudes and actions with which to deal with the outer world—including money and ownership. 114/ Maimonodes, Golden Ladder of Charity. [this list is from charitywatch.org] Maimonides, a 12th century Jewish scholar, invented the following ladder of giving. Each rung up represents a higher degree of virtue: 1. The lowest: Giving begrudgingly and making the recipient feel disgraced or embarrassed. 2. Giving cheerfully but giving too little. 3. Giving cheerfully and adequately but only after being asked. 4. Giving before being asked. 5. Giving when you do not know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient knows your identity. 6. Giving when you know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient does not know your identity. 7. Giving when neither the donor nor the recipient is aware of the other's identity. 8. The Highest: Giving money, a loan, your time or whatever else it takes to enable an individual to be self-reliant. 129/ Remember as this myth unfolds [Persephone] that we are speaking of inheritance in the larger sense. What we inherit is not merely money and only received at death, but it is everything, both good and bad, that we receive from our parents throughout our lifetime. When we examine such an inheritance, some of what we receive will be truly ours and worthwhile to keep. The rest we must learn to surrender if we are to get on with our own lives. 133/ As so happens, the child must deal with what the parent refuses to confront. 146/ Whether the parent is alive or dead, the child may believe some flaw in the parent has crippled and limited the child’s life. To become attached to this point of view is damaging, because the child fails to take responsibility for his or her own destiny.”

StoriesMoneyMyths
Author:Tad Crawford
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“More Quotes II 151/ … what we inherit is so vast it must come to us in installments received over time. 153/ Of course we may rage against our parents and siblings for a time. Either we have been given too little of what we wanted, too much of what we did not want, or not a fair portion compared to what someone else received. The most obvious symbol of this giving is money, but love, attention, encouragement, and so much more are also part of our inheritance. 180/ … no simple rule can govern whether we should enter into debt. 192/ CG Jung wrote of the play of fantasy that precedes any creative work. “Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.” 250/ Receiving this symbol [in the Wizard of Oz] is like a ritual that allows the to take the final step in their process of transformation, the step of knowing what they have become. 252/ The power of money to symbolize our life energy confuses us; we imagine that our self-worth and value depend on possessing money instead of using money as a tool to look more deeply within ourselves. … To circulate money, especially in service to our community, allows us to contact the natural wealth that we have within, energy that is augmented by giving to others. 253/ Dispelling illusions about money guides us towards the values that are most true for us. Each of us must find the nature of our own abundance. Each of us must decide how willing we are to share our money, our productivity, and our energy. So our relationship to money can deepen our understanding of our connection to other people and to our community.”

StoriesMoneySecrets
Book:The Secret Life of Money: Enduring Tales of Debt, Wealth, Happiness, Greed, and Charity
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“Like any ecosystem, a modern economy cannot survive without recycling. Just as animals and plants are continually recycling the oxygen and carbon dioxide that the other provides, so too must workers recycle their wages by spending them in shops and businesses recycle their revenues by spending them on salaries if both are to survive. And just as in our ecosystems, in which a failure of recycling leads to desertification, so when recycling breaks down in the economy we end up with a crisis that results in devastating poverty and deprivation.”

MoneyCapitalismRecyclingMarketsEconomic CrisisEcosystem
Book:Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
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