Wealth & Money Quote by Clarence Day

Day’s line lands like a doctor’s note written by a social satirist: yes, a little money-mindedness can grease the gears of ordinary life, but the moment it becomes a “habit,” it starts behaving like a toxin. The sly move is the word “addiction.” He drags finance out of the respectable realm of prudence and into the clinic, where craving has symptoms, relapses, and costs. Calling it “moderate” is a deliberate tease, too - the kind of phrase people use to excuse whatever they’re already doing. Day grants the audience its rationalization, then yanks it away with “in excess,” exposing how quickly the sensible alibi turns into pathology.

The real bite is in the closing: “bad for the health.” Not bad for the soul, not bad for society - though Day likely means those things as well - but bad in the blunt, bodily sense. That’s a cultural critique disguised as common sense. It suggests that the chase for wealth isn’t merely a moral failure; it’s a lifestyle that corrodes sleep, nerves, appetite, relationships, and the ability to enjoy the very security money promises.

Context matters: Day wrote in an America being reshaped by urban capitalism, status consumption, and the professional-managerial scramble. His joke targets the modern impulse to treat every desire as “responsible” if it’s profitable. The subtext is that money doesn’t just measure life; it can quietly replace it.