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Wealth & Money Quote by James Allen

"If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are"

About this Quote

Allen’s line is a polite demolition of a favorite excuse: the idea that virtue is something we can outsource to future prosperity. By framing goodness as a matter of “real desire,” he turns morality into a test of sincerity, not capacity. If you truly want to be good, he implies, you don’t negotiate with your bank balance. You act.

The craft here is in the pressure it applies to self-deception. “No need to wait” strips away the culturally accepted timeline where generosity, patience, sobriety, or decency are postponed until life feels stable. Allen’s “now, this very moment” works like a finger snapping in your face: it collapses the comforting distance between intention and behavior. “Just where you are” seals the argument by refusing the fantasy of the perfect setting - the better job, the calmer season, the cleaner past - that supposedly makes goodness possible.

Context matters. Allen wrote in the late-Victorian/Edwardian self-help tradition that fed the New Thought movement: character as destiny, mind as engine, discipline as salvation. That worldview can tilt into moralism, even victim-blame, but its rhetorical strength is empowerment. He’s relocating agency from institutions and circumstances to the individual conscience.

Subtext: money is not the obstacle; it’s the alibi. By making goodness immediate and local, Allen asks for a kind of everyday heroism - smaller than philanthropy, tougher than aspiration. It’s a call to stop waiting to become the person you already claim to be.

Quote Details

TopicEthics & Morality
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Allen, James. (2026, January 17). If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-real-desire-is-to-be-good-there-is-no-need-25832/

Chicago Style
Allen, James. "If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-real-desire-is-to-be-good-there-is-no-need-25832/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-real-desire-is-to-be-good-there-is-no-need-25832/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by James Add to List
James Allen: Do Good Now Without Waiting for Money
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About the Author

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James Allen (November 28, 1864 - January 24, 1912) was a Author from United Kingdom.

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