You don’t need to be a genius or a sage to realise — realise, not know, let alone work out — that there is no easy path to great wealth (or to anything useful) because if there were, the poor would be in a very small minority, and everybody else would be stinking rich.

Bernard Levin (1928-2004) British journalist, critic, broadcaster, satirist

Essay (1989-03-23), “Do You Seriously Want to Be Swindled?” The Times, London
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Collected in Now Read On (1980).