Midas Quotes

• Midas, they say, possessed the art of old; Of turning whatsoe'er he touch'd to gold; This modern statesmen can reverse with ease - Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please.

  John Wolcot

  Art, Political, Gold

  21 Copy quote

• I have become rather like King Midas, except that everything turns not into gold but into a circus.

  Albert Einstein

  Kings, Gold, Circus

  24 Copy quote

• To me, the capacity to earn money has never been a measurement of success. It is my belief that people must develop a philosophy early in life which permits them to have as much pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction now as is possible without injuring themselves or others. Money can help to do this, but it is not and must not become the sole aim of a person's existence. We all know what happened to King Midas.

  Rudy Vallee

  Success, Kings, Philosophy

  15 Copy quote

• Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Kings, Gold, Mediocrity

  Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1972). “The First Circle”

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• DNA is like Midas's gold, everyone who touches it goes mad.

  Maurice Wilkins

  Dna, Mad, Gold

  17 Copy quote

• You have the Midas touch. Everything you touch turns to a muffler.

  Henny Youngman

  Funny, Humor, Insult

  Henny Youngman (1994). “Henny Youngman's Bar Jokes, Bar Bets and Bar Tricks”, Outlet

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The trick, though, is to not lose compassion, to not allow the sense of absurdity to outweigh the awareness of real beings, with real feelings. Mean-spirited humor turns the world into cardboard, the way Midas's simple-minded greed turned food into inedible and useless stuff.

  Jane Hirshfield

  Real, Mean, Simple

  Source: www.americanmicroreviews.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there's a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I'm gonna do it good; I'm going to bring it over the top.

  Mr. T

  Jobs, Cocky, Conceited

  13 Copy quote

• Accumulating knowledge is a form of avarice and lends itself to another version of the Midas story ...man [is] so avid for knowledge that everything that he touches turns to facts; his faith becomes theology; his love becomes lechery; his wisdom becomes science; pursuing meaning, he ignores truth.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Love Is, Men, Avid

  Malcolm Muggeridge (2005). “Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith”, p.152, Ignatius Press

  142 Copy quote

  Show source

• That's why we live by a river. Occasionally, I forget and pat Lit on the back--' 'I hate that.' King Midas & Lit

  Rick Riordan

  Kings, Hate, Rivers

  10 Copy quote

• Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!

  William Cowper

  Sports, Country, Mad

  William Cowper, James Sambrook (2016). “William Cowper: The Task and Selected Other Poems”, p.156, Routledge

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.

  Alexander Berkman

  Hands, House, Degradation

  Alexander Berkman (1912). “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel like Travis [Stevens] is just a Midas touch producer. Seemingly everything he touches turns to gold lately, so that was quite exciting looking at that prospect.

  Barbara Crampton

  Gold, Exciting, Producers

  Source: collider.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Midas-eared Mammonism, double-barrelled Dilettantism, and their thousand adjuncts and corollaries, are not the Law by which God Almighty has appointed this His universe to go.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Law, Wealth, Almighty

  Thomas Carlyle (1858). “Chartism: Past and Present. By Thomas Carlyle”, p.96

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction; he can never get a square meal of experience.

  Michael Joseph Oakeshott

  Squares, Meals, Able

  9 Copy quote