Mammon
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven: for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific.
John Milton
Mammon /ˈmæmən/ in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. In the Middle Ages it was often personified as a deity and sometimes included in the seven princes of Hell.
Quotes
[edit]- Mammon, n.: The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).
- Of course the avaricious man of our day, be he landlord, merchant, industrialist, does not adore sacks of coins or bundles of banknotes in some little chapel and upon some little altar. He does not kneel before these spoils of other men, nor does he address prayers or canticles to them amidst odorous clouds of incense. But he proclaims that money is the only good, and he yields it all his soul. A cult sincere, without hypocrisy, never growing weary, never forsworn. Whenever he says, in the debasement of his heart and his speech, that he loves money for the delights it can purchase, he lies or he terribly deceives himself, this very assertion being belied at the very moment he utters it by every one of his acts, by the infinite toil and pains to which he gladly condemns himself in order to acquire or conserve that money which is but the visible figure of the Blood of Christ circulating throughout all His members.
- Léon Bloy, Pilgrim of the Absolute (1947), pp. 89-90
- Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.- Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I (1812), Stanza 9.
- The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor.
- Pope Francis, reported in "Unbridled capitalism is the 'dung of the devil', says Pope Francis", The Guardian (July 9, 2015).
- Οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει· οὐ δύνασθε Θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ.
- Mammon led them on—
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven: for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific.- John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 678.
- Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor.- Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 171.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
[edit]- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 487.
- I rose up at the dawn of day,—
"Get thee away! get thee away!
Pray'st thou for riches? Away, away!
This is the throne of Mammon grey."- William Blake, Mammon.
- Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures
To restless action spurs our fate!
Cursed when for soft, indulgent leisures,
He lays for us the pillows straight.
- We cannot serve God and Mammon.
- Matthew, VI. 24.
- What treasures here do Mammon's sons behold!
Yet know that all that which glitters is not gold.- Francis Quarles, Emblems, Book II. Emblem V.
