An American possessed of nineteenth century grandeur, he was yet a man of contradictions. The wealthiest human being of his time, he was convinced of the merits of poverty in developing character. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself.
Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth. Andrew Carnegie was convinced of and committed to the notion that education was life's key.