"It looks poorest when you are richest." 

-Henry David Thoreau

In the beginning of chapter 19 of  Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, it describes the transition of how farming went from the landowners cherishing and truly caring for their farms into reaping all that they could from them and turning it into an "industry". These once hard working farmers soon had others doing their work and lost their connection with their land and only used it to satisfy their greed.

"Crop failures, drought, and flood were no longer deaths within life, but simple losses of money. And all their love was thinned with money.."

It goes on to describe the fear and hatred that these rich landowners had towards the "Okies". This fear consumed them and instead of sitting back and enjoying their success, they spent their time trying to obtain ever more land and power. Their greed drove them and for that reason they were never truly happy, even though they were the richest.

Did you find any other passages in the book that you felt correlated with Thoreau's beliefs?