Quotes from The Financier

Theodore Dreiser ·  460 pages

Rating: (4K votes)


“Die Wirkung eines solchen Hauses auf seinen Besitzer ist unverkennbar. […] Es ist ein gegenseitiger Austausch von Würde, Bedeutung und Kraft, und jegliche Schönheit (oder deren Mangel) spinnt ständig wie ein hin und her sausendes Weberschiffchen von einem zum anderen geheime Fäden. Man schneide die Fäden durch, trenne den Menschen von dem, was von Rechts wegen sein Eigen und bezeichnend für ihn ist, und was zurück bleibt, ist ein seltsames Wesen, halb Erfolg und halb Versagen, wie die Spinne ohne Netz, das nie mehr sein wird, was es war, wenn ihm nicht alle seine Würden und Einkünfte zurück gegeben werden.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“Die Liebe einer Mutter zu ihren Kindern ist beherrschend, löwinnenhaft, selbstsüchtig und zugleich selbstlos […]. Die Liebe eines Vaters zu seinem Sohn oder seiner Tochter ist, wenn es sich überhaupt um Liebe handelt, ein weitherziges, großzügiges, schwermütiges und nachdenkliches Schenken ohne Hoffnung auf Erwiderung, ein Abschiedsgruß an einen geplagten Wanderer, den er gern beschützen möchte, ein richtig abgewogenes Urteil über Stärke und Schwäche, voll Mitleid für den Misserfolg und voll Stolz auf Erfolg.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“Damals war der Ruf des Detektivs William A. Pinkerton und seines Auskunftsbüros sehr bedeutend. Der Mann war durch eine Reihe von Wechselfällen aus Armut zu hohem Ansehen in seinem sonderbaren und für manche Leute widerwärtigen Beruf emporgestiegen, aber für alle, die solche an sich unglücklichen Dienste benötigen, war seine wohlbekannte und patriotische Rolle im Bürgerkrieg und um Abraham Lincolns Person eine Empfehlung. Er oder vielmehr seine Organisation hatte diesen während der ganzen Dauer seiner stürmischen Amtszeit im Regierungspalast geschützt. Seine Firma hatte Niederlassungen in Philadelphia, Washington und New York, um nur die bedeutendsten Orte zu nennen.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“In short, he was one of those early, daring manipulators who later were to seize upon other and even larger phases of American natural development for their own aggrandizement.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“president's brilliant theory of vending his wares direct to the people—was perhaps the only one who had suspicions. He had once written a brilliant criticism to some inquirer, in which he had said that no enterprise of such magnitude as the Northern Pacific had ever before been entirely dependent upon one house, or rather upon one man, and that he did not like it. "I am not sure that the lands through which the road runs are so unparalleled in climate, soil, timber, minerals, etc., as Mr. Cooke and his friends would have us believe. Neither do I think that the road”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier



“He liked it, the idea of self-duplication. It was almost acquisitive, this thought.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the brokers another part: the officials made money, and the brokers received a fat commission.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“Strange ambition. Strange perversion, one might almost say. In”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“People,” he said, “don’t worry about people. People think what you want them to think.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“A real man—a financier—was never a tool. He used tools. He created. He led. Clearly,”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier



“Never? That’s a hard word when it comes to whisky.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


“Cowperwood was shocked by the nudity of the Venus which conveyed an atmosphere of European freedom not common to America;”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from The Financier


About the author

Theodore Dreiser
Born place: in Terre Haute, Indiana, The United States
Born date August 27, 1871
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