It Is Wrong To Assume That

From How They Succeeded (1901) by Orison Swett Marden, a collection of interviews with leading industrialists. Rockefeller offered the remark as a counterweight to the public mythology surrounding men of great wealth, acknowledging that fortune does not automatically produce contentment. It is consistent with his lifelong emphasis — in private letters and in Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (1909) — on the dangers of making money an end in itself rather than a means to service and purpose.