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Money

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The money which a man possesses is the instrument of freedom.; that which we eagerly pursue is the instrument of slavery. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Despising money is like toppling a king off his throne. ~ Nicolas Chamfort
We ought not to have more use and esteem of money and coin than of stones. And the devil seeks to blind those who desire or value it more than stones. ~ Francis of Assisi

Money is commonly defined by the functions attached to any good or token that functions in trade as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account, although economics offers various definitions.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations · Misattributed · See also · External links

A

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Plato said that virtue has no master. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself. ~ Apollonius of Tyana
The usual definition of the functions of money are that money is a medium of exchange, a measure of value, a standard of deferred payment and a store of value. ~ Sir Norman Angell
Alphabetized by author or source
The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money. ~ Benjamin Franklin
It's no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money. ~ "Everett Sloane" in Citizen Kane
The people hiss me, but I applaud myself at home, when I contemplate the money in my chest. ~ Horace
In essence, money is a lifeblood flowing through ourselves, our society, our global human community, and should be acknowledged and treated consciously. ~ Bernard Lietaer
The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. ~ Paul of Tarsus
What power has law where only money rules? ~ Petronius
I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake. ~ John D. Rockefeller
  • This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
  • Money, now this has to be some good shit.
  • The usual definition of the functions of money are that money is a medium of exchange, a measure of value, a standard of deferred payment and a store of value.
  • If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil.
    • Anonymous proverb as quoted in Select Proverbs of All Nations (1824), Thomas Fielding; this has sometimes been mistakenly attributed to Henry Fielding
  • Plato said that virtue has no master. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself.
  • Money makes the man.
    • Aristodemus. See Alcæus, Fragment. Miscel. Songs. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.

B

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  • Divitiæ bona ancilla, pessima domina.
    • Translations:
      Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
      Wealth is a good servant, a very bad mistress
      L'argent est un bon serviteur, et un méchant maître
      Money is a good servant, a dangerous master.
    • Francis Bacon, De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), Book Six
    • The last two have sometimes been attributed to Dominique Bouhours, but are probably just translations of Bacon's words.
  • L'argent est un bon serviteur, mais un méchant maître.
    • Money is a good servant but a bad master.
    • Quoted by Francis Bacon. (French Proverb.) In Menegiana, II. 296. 1695. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Money is like muck (manure), not good except it be spread.
  • "The love of money is the root of all evil". This throws us back on the fundamental weakness of humanity - the quality of desire. Of this money is the result and the symbol... Desire demands the satisfaction of sensed need, the desire for goods and possessions, the desire for material comfort, for the acquisition and accumulation of things... This desire controls and dominates human thinking; it is the keynote of our modern civilisation; it is also the octopus which is slowly strangling human life, enterprise, and decency; it is the millstone around the neck of mankind...
    There are, however, large numbers of people whose lives are not dominated by the love of money, and who can normally think in terms of the higher values. They are the hope of the future but are individually imprisoned in the system which, spiritually, must end. Though they do not love money, they need it, and must have it; the tentacles of the business world surround them; they too must work and earn the wherewithal to live; the work they seek to do to aid humanity, cannot be done without the required funds.
  • Just as money has been in the past the instrument of men's selfishness, now it must be the instrument of their goodwill. (5 - 166).
  • I look at Paris Hilton, think about her parents' fortune and her grandparents' fortune. She thought she had it all together. A whole lot of people think that, that when you got money you can do anything you want to do. But I want to tell you there are some things money can't do for you; Money can buy you a house, but can't buy you a home; Money can buy you food to put on your table, but can't buy an appetite; Money can buy you one of the most finest matresses in the world, but can't buy you sleep.
  • Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.
    • James Baldwin "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)
  • If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom He gives it.
  • If money is, as it is often posited, the root of all evil, then where does that leave greed? Let's do the math: Greed takes up most of your time and most of your money, so therefore greed = time x money. And, as we all know, time = money. Ergo, greed = money x money. So, if money is the square root of all evil, then we are forced to conclude that greed is evil as well, perhaps even more so, in that it forced us to do math.
    But when does the desire to simply possess something turn into unchecked greed? That's easy: when the things that you possess start possessing you.
    • Dale E. Basye and Bob Dob, in Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck (2009), "Backword", p. 361.
  • Money is the currency of the world, but it rarely is our currency.
    • Julien Blanc, Transformation Mastery (2017)
  • Money should buy you one thing only and that is freedom.
    • Max Berger, Rules of Money (2018)
  • The sinews of business (or state).
    • Bion. In Life of Bion by Diogenes Laertius, Book IV, Chapter VII, Section 3. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • The accuser of sins by my side doth stand,
    And he holds my money bag in his hand;
    For my worldly things God makes him pay;
    And he'd pay for more, if to him I would pray.
    • William Blake, as quoted in Life of William Blake : Pictor Ignotus (1863) by Alexander Gilchrist.
  • We could never imagine what a strange disproportion a few or a great many pieces of money make between men, if we did not see it every day with our own eyes.
  • And who can suffer injury by just taxation, impartial laws and the application of the Jeffersonian doctrine of equal rights to all and special privileges to none? Only those whose accumulations are stained with dishonesty and whose immoral methods have given them a distorted view of business, society and government. Accumulating by conscious frauds more money than they can use upon themselves, wisely distribute or safely leave to their children, these denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw a light upon their crimes.
    • William Jennings Bryan, speech at Madison Square Garden, New York, 30 August 1906, at a reception welcoming Bryan on his return from a year's trip around the world. Speeches of William Jennings Bryan, Funk & Wagnalls, 1909, p. 90
    • Often misquoted as: The money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. Ignotus, 1863.
  • Money well managed deserves, indeed, the apotheosis to which she was raised by her Latin adorers; she is Diva Moneta — a goddess.
  • The greediness of gain is the only principle on which a stranger can be induced to furnish a stranger.
    • Burnett, J., Earl of Chesterfield v. Janssen (1750), 2 Ves. 125. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • Money is the source of the greatest vice, and that nation which is most rich, is most wicked.
    • Frances Burney, The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, entry for 17 November 1768.
  • Penny wise, pound foolish.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus to the Reader, p. 35. (Ed. 1887).
  • Mr. Butler urged the same idea: adding that money was power; and that the States ought to have weight in the government in proportion to their wealth.
    • Pierce Butler, Notes of Debates, by James Madison, June 11th, 1787.
  • Still amorous, and fond, and billing,
    Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.
  • Money…is the symbol of duty, it is the sacrament of having done for mankind that which mankind wanted. Mankind may not be a very good judge, but there is no better.
  • How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests
    Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins
    (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests
    Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines,
    But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests
    Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines,
    Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp;—
    Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

C

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Covetousness ... chooses to love and care for images stamped on gold instead of God. ~ John Cassian
We must not only guard against the possession of money, but also must expel from our souls the desire for it. For we should not so much avoid the results of covetousness, as cut off by the roots all disposition towards it. For it will do no good not to possess money, if there exists in us the desire for getting it. ~ John Cassian
  • A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.
  • It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.
  • Money, which is of very uncertain value, and sometimes has no value at all and even less.
    • Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Book IV, Chapter III. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Covetousness ... chooses to love and care for images stamped on gold instead of God.
    • John Cassian, "On the Spirit of Covetousness," Institutes of the Coenobia (c. 420 AD), Book VII Chapter VII
  • We must not only guard against the possession of money, but also must expel from our souls the desire for it. For we should not so much avoid the results of covetousness, as cut off by the roots all disposition towards it. For it will do no good not to possess money, if there exists in us the desire for getting it.
    • John Cassian, "On the Spirit of Covetousness," Institutes of the Coenobia (c. 420 AD), Book VII Chapter VII
  • It is possible that those who are in no way pressed down with the weight of money may be condemned with the covetous in disposition and intent. For it was the opportunity of possessing which was wanting in their case, and not the will for it.
    • John Cassian, Institutes of the Coenobia (c. 420 AD) Book VII Chapter XXII
  • If money is all that a man makes, then he will be poor — poor in happiness, poor in all that makes life worth living.
    • Herbert N. Casson cited in: Forbes magazine (1950) The Forbes scrapbook of Thoughts on the business of life. p. 302.
  • Make ducks and drakes with shillings.
    • George Chapman, Eastward Ho, scene 1, Act I. (Written by Chapman, Jonson, Marston). Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Despising money is like toppling a king off his throne.
  • L’intérêt d’argent est la grande épreuve des petits caractères, mais ce n’est encore que la plus petite pour les caractères distingués.
    • Money is the greatest concern for small characters, but is nothing but the smallest for great characters.
  • Money is a symbol of what others in your society owe you, or your claim on particular amounts of the society's resources.
  • The way to resumption is to resume.
    • Salmon P. Chase, letter to Horace Greeley (May 17, 1866). Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
  • The purified righteous man has become a coin of the Lord, and has the impress of his King stamped upon him.
    • Clement of Alexandria, in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 104.
  • I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow who used to say, "Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves."
  • Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.
  • I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money. Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.
  • So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
    So pleasant it is to have money.
  • As I sat at the Café I said to myself,
    They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
    They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,
    But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking
    How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
    How pleasant it is to have money!
    • Arthur Hugh Clough, Spectator Ab Extra. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.
    • Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think (1836), p. 149.
  • No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
  • To make money honestly is to preach the gospel.
  • Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money.
  • Money was made, not to command our will,
    But all our lawful pleasures to fulfil.
    Shame and woe to us, if we our wealth obey;
    The horse doth with the horseman run away.
    • Abraham Cowley, Imitations, Tenth Epistle of Horace, Book I, line 75. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,
    Not yet discoloured with the love of gold
    (That jaundice of the soul,
    Which makes it look so gilded and so foul) ...
  • Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
    To turn a penny in the way of trade.
    • William Cowper, Table Talk, line 421. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.

D

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Everybody needs money. That's why it's called "money". ~ Danny Devito
As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it.~ Benjamin Disraeli
Money, which represents the prose of life, and is hardly spoken of in parlors without apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest and faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it. ~ Epictetus
Money. Cause of all evil, Auri sacra fames. The god of the day—but not to be confused with Apollo. Politicians call it emoluments; lawyers, retainers; doctors, fees; employees, salary; workmen, pay; servants, wages. "Money is not happiness." ~ Gustave Flaubert
  • I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. … I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. .. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.
    • John Danforth, Republican senator from Missouri, reported in the Arizona Republic (21 April 1992).
  • The lands and houses, the goods and merchandise and the money of the world are owned by a very few. All the rest in some way serve that few for so much as the law of life and trade permit them to exact.
  • The sinews of affairs are cut.
    • Attributed to Demosthenes by Æschines, Adv. Ctesiphon. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • The grabbing hands
    Grab all they can
    All for themselves, after all
    It's a competitive world
    Everything counts in large amounts
  • ... I realized that "money talk," let's call it that way, is purposefully esoteric. Like, it's designed to not be understood — to create this aura around it — ... you, me, we shouldn't really concern ourselves with this, because it's too arcane and abstruse. Leave it to the specialists. And that's a power play ...
  • As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it.
  • The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, in the House of Commons (Feb. 19, 1850). Endymion (1818), Chapter XCVI. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • "The American nation in the Sixth Ward is a fine People," he says. "They love th' eagle," he says. "On the back iv a dollar."
    • F. P. Donne, Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, Oratory on Politics. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it: "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."
    • David Alfred Doudney "Old Jonathan's" jottings; or, Light and lessons from daily life (1869), p. 18; published earlier in the magazine Old Jonathan, or the Parish Helper
    • Often misattributed to Benjamin Franklin

E

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  • Wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.
    • Ecclesiastes. X. 19. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.
  • The elegant simplicity of the three per cents.
    • Lord Eldon. See Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Volume X, Chapter CCXII.
  • Money, which represents the prose of life, and is hardly spoken of in parlors without apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
  • Money often costs too much.
  • It is not, believe me, the chief end of man that he should make a fortune and beget children whose end is likewise to make fortunes, but it is, in few words, that he should explore himself — an inexhaustible mine — and external nature is but the candle to illuminate in turn the innumerable and profound obscurities of the soul.
  • If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest and faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it.
    • Epictetus, "The Encheiridion, or Manual, XXIV" (c. 135 A.D.), as translated by George Long, The Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion and Fragments (1890), p. 388

F

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Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get. ~ Henry Ford
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some. ~ Benjamin Franklin
In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
The earning of money should be a means to an end; for more than thirty years — I began to support myself at sixteen — I had to regard it as the end itself. ~ George Gissing
  • Almighty gold.
    • George Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, III. 2. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Penny saved is a penny got.
  • Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the rest;
    Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!
  • Money. Cause of all evil, Auri sacra fames. The god of the day—but not to be confused with Apollo. Politicians call it emoluments; lawyers, retainers; doctors, fees; employees, salary; workmen, pay; servants, wages. "Money is not happiness."
  • Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get.
  • Let every man abide in the art or employment wherein he was called. And for their labor they may receive all necessary things, except money. ... Let none of the brothers, wherever he may be or whithersoever he may go, carry or receive money or coin in any manner, or cause it to be received, either for clothing, or for books, or as the price of any labor, or indeed for any reason, except on account of the manifest necessity of the sick brothers.
  • We ought not to have more use and esteem of money and coin than of stones. And the devil seeks to blind those who desire or value it more than stones. Let us therefore take care lest after having left all things we lose the kingdom of heaven for such a trifle. And if we should chance to find money in any place, let us no more regard it than the dust we tread under our feet. ... And let the brothers in nowise receive money for alms or cause it to be received, seek it or cause it to be sought.
  • There are three faithful friends,
an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
  • If you'd lose a troublesome visitor, lend him money.
  • If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
  • The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money.
  • Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. [...] Remember, that money is the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding feline taint, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.
    • Benjamin Franklin as quoted in Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism" (Penguin Books, 2002) translated by Peter Baehr and Gordon C. Wells, 9–12.
  • 'Tis money that begets money.

G

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A man who works at another’s will, not for his own passion or his own need, but for money or honor, is always a fool. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.
  • "I would not steal a penny, for my income's very fair—
    I do not want a penny—I have pennies and to spare—
    And if I stole a penny from a money-bag or till,
    The sin would be enormous—the temptation being nil.
  • The earning of money should be a means to an end; for more than thirty years — I began to support myself at sixteen — I had to regard it as the end itself.
  • Money. You don’t know where it’s been,
    but you put it where your mouth is.
    And it talks.
  • The money pigs of capitalist democracy… Money has made slaves of us… Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.
    • Joseph Goebbels, quoted in The Nazi Party: A Complete History 1919-1945, Dietrich Orlow, New York: NY, Enigma Books, 2012, p 61. Goebbels’ article, “Nationalsozialisten aus Berlin und aus dem Reich”, Voelkischer Beobachter, Feb. 4, 1927
  • Ein Mensch, der um anderer willen, ohne dass es seine eigene Leidenschaft, sein eigenes Bedürfnis ist, sich um Geld oder Ehre oder sonst etwas abarbeitet, ist immer ein Tor.
    • A man who works at another’s will, not for his own passion or his own need, but for money or honor, is always a fool.
  • Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States.
    • Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), With No Apologies: The Personal and Political Memoirs of United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater (1979).
  • With money, so they all profess —
    And I've no wish to beg the question —
    One cannot purchase Happiness
    Or Peace of Mind, or yet Success,
    Or a robust digestion;
    But one can buy a good cigar
    And plovers' eggs and caviare!
    • Harry Graham, 'The Millionaire', The World's Workers (1928).
  • Whoever said money can't solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve them.
  • If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.
    • Robert Graves (1895–1985), English novelist and poet. 'Mammon', Mammon and the Black Goddess (1965).
  • It is true that the masses have always been led in one manner or another, and it could be said that their part in history consists primarily in allowing themselves to be led, since they represent a merely passive element, a “matter” in the Aristotelian sense of the word. But, to lead them today, it is sufficient to dispose of purely material means, … and this shows clearly to what depths our age has sunk. At the same time the masses are made to believe that they are not being led, but that they are acting spontaneously and governing themselves, and the fact that they believe this is a sign from which the extent of their stupidity may be inferred.

H

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To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be always controlled unless we declare our specific purpose. Or, since when we declare our specific purpose we shall also have to get it approved, we should really be controlled in everything. ~ Friedrich Hayek
Fight thou with shafts of silver, and o'ercome
When no force else can get the masterdome. ~ Robert Herrick
Of what use is a fortune to me, if I can not use it? ~ Horace
They may talk of the plugging and sweating
Of our coinage that's minted of gold,
But to me it produces no fretting
Of its shortness of weight to be told:
All the sov'reigns I'm able to levy
As to lightness can never be wrong,
But must surely be some of the heavy,
For I never can carry them long. ~ Thomas Hood
  • This bank-note world.
    • Fitz-Greene Halleck, Alnwick Castle. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be always controlled unless we declare our specific purpose. Or, since when we declare our specific purpose we shall also have to get it approved, we should really be controlled in everything.
    • Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter 7, "Economic Control and Totalitarianism".
  • If you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do.
    • Oliver Heaviside, Electromagnetic Theory (1912), Volume III; "The Electrician", p. 1.
  • “The answer to ‘Why’ is always ‘Money.’”
  • Get to live;
    Then live, and use it; else, it is not true
    That thou hast gotten. Surely use alone
    Makes money not a contemptible stone.
    • George Herbert, The Temple (1633), The Church Porch, Stanza 26. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Would you know what money is, go borrow some.
  • Fight thou with shafts of silver, and o'ercome
    When no force else can get the masterdome.
    • Robert Herrick, Money Gets the Mastery. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.
  • How widely its agencies vary,—
    To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
    As even its minted coins express,
    Now stamp'd with the image of good Queen Bess,
    And now of a Bloody Mary.
    • Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg, Her Moral. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • They may talk of the plugging and sweating
    Of our coinage that's minted of gold,
    But to me it produces no fretting
    Of its shortness of weight to be told:
    All the sov'reigns I'm able to levy
    As to lightness can never be wrong,
    But must surely be some of the heavy,
    For I never can carry them long.
    • Thomas Hood (1799–1845), 'Epigram on the Depreciated Money', Hood's Own, Second Series (1861).
  • Si possis recte, si non, quocumque mondo rem.
    By right means, if you can, but by any means make money.
  • Quærenda pecunia primum est; virtus post nummos.
    • Money is to be sought for first of all; virtue after wealth.
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 1. 53. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Rem facias rem,
    Recte si possis, si non, quocumque modo rem.
    • Money, make money; by honest means if you can; if not, by any means make money.
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 1. 65. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Quo mihi fortunam, si non conceditur uti?
    Of what use is a fortune to me, if I can not use it?
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 5. 12. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.
    • All powerful money gives birth and beauty.
    • Horace, Epistles, 1. 6. 37. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Licet superbus ambules pecuniæ,
    Fortuna non mutat genus.
    • Though you strut proud of your money, yet fortune has not changed your birth.
    • Horace, Epodi, IV. 5. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
    Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
    • The people hiss me, but I applaud myself at home, when I contemplate the money in my chest.
    • Horace, Satires, I. 1. 66. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY.
  • Here then we may learn the fallacy of the remark... that any particular state is weak, though fertile, populous, and well cultivated, merely because it wants money. It appears that the want of money can never injure any state within itself: For men and commodities are the real strength of any community. It is the simple manner of living which here hurts the public, by confining the gold and silver to few hands, and preventing its universal diffusion and circulation. On the contrary, industry and refinements of all kinds incorporate it with the whole state, however small its quantity may be: They digest it into every vein, so to speak; and make it enter into every transaction and contract.
    • David Hume, Of Money (1752) as quoted in David Hume: Writings on Economics (1955, 1970) ed., Eugene Rotwein, p. 45.

I

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  • The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages.
    • Washington Irving, Creole Village, in Wolfert's Roost. Appeared in Knickerbocker Magazine (Nov., 1836). Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.

J

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  • There should, I feel, be one branch [of the Black Panther Party] that is purely political, operating the rent strikes, the breakfast programs, the People's Bazaar's where all sorts of food are sold, hospitals or clinics (free, of course), and what I will term cottage shops to employ those who will work for the new medium of exchange—love and loyalty.
  • Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
    And almost every vice, almighty gold.
    • Ben Jonson, Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Get money; still get money, boy;
    No matter by what means.
    • Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, Act II, scene 3. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Quantum quisque sua nummorum condit in arca,
    Tantum habet et fidei.
    • Every man's credit is proportioned to the money which he has in his chest.
    • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), III. 143. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Ploratur lacrimis amissa pecunia veris.
    • Money lost is bewailed with unfeigned tears.
    • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), XIII. 134. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit.
    • The love of money grows as the money itself grows.
    • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), XIV. 139. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Ploratur lacrimis amissa pecunia veris.
  • Lost money is wept for with real tears.
  • Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit,
    Et minus hanc optat, qu non habet.
  • Increase of wealth increases our desires
    And hew, who least possesses, least requires.
  • Alt. Translation: The love of money grows as the money itself grows.
  • It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power "to coin money and regulate the value thereof." Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution. But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional.
    • Andrew Jackson, veto mesage rgarding the Bank of the United States [2] (1832-07-10)
    • Often paraphrased as: If Congress has the right under the constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.
  • I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.
  • And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
  • No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
  • No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
    • Samuel Johnson, Stated on 14 April 1776, quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).

K

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  • Throw money at a problem and it will remain.
    • Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), Abandoned, Pleased, Brainwashed, Exploited.
  • The spark for a relationship might come for free—a look, a word. But the fuel to keep it going would always be expensive. Money might not buy happiness, but the lack of money could buy endless unhappiness for any two people.
    • Kenn Kaufman, Kingbird Highway (1997), Chapter 18, The Kenmare Convention
  • Things are simply so arranged that not all men can have money. Prometheus and Epimetheus, you say, were undeniably very wise, but all the same it is incomprehensible that when in other respects they endowed men so gloriously it did not occur to them to give them money also.
    • Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part II, 1843 Swenson 1944, 1971 p. 283
  • It would undeniably be a superb invention by laughter to imagine eternity in a financial predicament-ah, but then let us weep a little because temporality has so completely forgotten eternity and forgotten that from the eternal point of view money is less that nothing! Alas, many are of the opinion that the eternal is a delusion and that money is the reality, whereas in the understanding of eternity and of truth money is a delusion. Think of eternity in whatever way you want to; only admit that many of the temporal things you have seen in temporality you wished to find again in eternity, that you wished to see the trees and the flowers and the stars again, to hear the singing of the birds and the murmuring of the brooks again, but, could it ever occur to you that there would be money in eternity? No, then the kingdom of heaven itself would again become a land of misery, and therefore this cannot possibly occur to you, just as it cannot possibly occur to someone who believes money is reality that there is an eternity.
  • Any man who spends his income, whether large or small, benefits the community by putting money in circulation.
    • Kekewich, J., In re Nottage (1895), L. R. 2 C. D. [1895], p. 653. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
    Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
    • Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1120), Stanza 13. FitzGerald's translation. ("Promise" for "credit"; "Music" for "rumble" in 2nd ed). Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Money in the pocket, devil in the heart.
    • Ivo Kozarčanin, Gruop of Authors: Velika knjiga aforizama, Prosvjeta-Globus, Vol. IV, 1984

L

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  • To borrow money, big money, you have to wear your hair in a certain way, walk in a certain way, and have about you an air of solemnity and majesty — something like the atmosphere of a Gothic cathedral.
  • For the first time in human history we have available the production technologies to create unprecedented abundance. All this converges into an extraordinary opportunity to combine the hardware of our technologies of abundance and the software of archetypal shifts. Such a combination has never been available at this scale or at this speed: it enables us to consciously design money to work for us, instead of us for it. I propose that we choose to develop money systems that will enable us to attain sustainability and community healing on a local and global scale. These objectives are in our grasp within less than one generation's time. Whether we materialize them or not will depend on our capacity to cooperate with each other to consciously reinvent our money.
  • While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money - using markets and resources to do so. So designing new money systems really amounts to redesigning the target that orients much human effort... Greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament... greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.
  • Greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament... greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.
  • Money is created when banks lend it into existence. When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough world to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000.
  • Your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions: $2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system.
  • Money is an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange.
  • My expertise lies in international finance and money systems. This is why I have adopted here a whole systems approach to money. Whole systems take into account a broader, more comprehensive arena than economics does; it integrates not only economic interactions but also their most important side effects. This includes specifically in our case the effects of different money systems on the quality of human interactions, on society at large, and on ecological systems.
  • We, as lawyers, as men of business, as men of experience, know perfectly well what evils necessarily result from handing over a great family estate to a mortgagee in possession, whose only chance of getting his money is to sacrifice the interests of everybody to money-getting.
    • Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley, L.J., In re Marquis of Ailesbury's Settled Estates (1891), L. J. Rep. 61 C. D. 123. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • Nec quicquam acrius quam pecuniæ damnum stimulat.
    • Nothing stings more deeply than the loss of money.
    • Livy, Annales, XXX. 44. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.
    • William Lowndes, Section of Treasury under William III, George I. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • As a rule, there is nothing that offends us more than a new kind of money.
    • Robert Lynd, The Pleasures of Ignorance (1921), p. 215.
  • Only think about it, it’s mysticism. You take a paper, make a special drawing on it. And suddenly the magic begins. It’s not a paper anymore. It’s any thing. Any desire. Freedom. Conquered space… But the drawing has to be very precise. If one tiny curl is missing, it seems like it makes no difference. But that’s the end. The magic is already destroyed. The paper is just a paper. But if everything is in place, look at the iridescence, the subtle magical patterns, the strict lines!
    • Russian: Как подумаешь, так ведь это мистика. Берется бумага, на ней делается специальный рисунок. И вдруг начинается колдовство. Это уже не бумага. Это любая вещь. Любое желание. Свобода. Покоренное пространство… Только рисунок должен быть очень точным. Не хватит одной крошечной завитушки — вроде какая разница. А уже всё. Уже колдовство разрушается. И бумага — только бумага. Но если все на месте — посмотрите, какие переливы, какие тонкие волшебные узоры, какие строгие линии!
    • Olga and Alexander Lavrov, The Magical Patterns (Волшебные узоры)

M

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  • But for money and the need of it, there would not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good if divinely used. Give it plenty of air, and it is sweet as the hawthorn; shut it up, and it cankers and breeds worms.
  • This currency is nothing more than the evidence of service having been rendered for which an equivalent has not been received, but which may at any time be demanded. It is obvious that as soon as it has been rendered, the evidence of its being due must be given up to the debtor to be destroyed, and it will be no longer current. And if any man can render services to his neighbours, he must in return receive either other services, or the evidence of their being due; and if he renders more services than he immediately requires in return, he will accumulate a store of this evidence for his future wants. ...It is quite clear that its use is to measure and record debts, and to facilitate their transfer from one person to another; and whatever means be adopted for this purpose, whether it be gold, silver, paper, or anything else, is a currency. We may therefore lay down as our fundamental conception that Currency and Transferable Debt are convertible terms; whatever represents transferable debt of any sort is Currency, and whatever material the currency may consist of, it represents transferable debt and nothing else.
  • One cannot help regretting that where money is concerned, it is so much the rule to overlook moral obligations.
    • Malins, V.-C., Ellis v. Houston (1878), L. R. 10 0. D. 240. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • Up and down the City Road,
    In and out the Eagle,
    That's the way the money goes—
    Pop goes the weasel!
    • W. R. Mandale (attributed to), Popular street song in England in the late 1850s, sung at the Grecian Theatre. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922) p. 521-24.
  • Capital is money: Capital is commodities. In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs. Value, therefore, being the active factor in such a process, and assuming at one time the form of money, at another that of commodities, but through all these changes preserving itself and expanding, it requires some independent form, by means of which its identity may at any time be established. And this form it possesses only in the shape of money. It is under the form of money that value begins and ends, and begins again, every act of its own spontaneous generation. It began by being £100, it is now £110, and so on. But the money itself is only one of the two forms of value. Unless it takes the form of some commodity, it does not become capital. There is here no antagonism, as in the case of hoarding, between the money and commodities. The capitalist knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money.
  • Money, then, appears as this overturning power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc.,which claim to be essences in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence and intelligence into idiocy.
    • Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
  • Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history
  • I who can have, through the power of money, everything for which the human heart longs, do I not possess all human abilities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their opposites?
    • Karl Marx, Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844).
  • Money is not a thing, but a social relation.
  • Since money does not disclose what has been transformed into it, everything, whether a commodity or not, is convertible into gold. Everything becomes sellable and purchasable. Circulation is the great social retort into which everything is thrown and out of which everything is recovered as crystallized money. Not even the bones of the saints are able to withstand this alchemy; and still less able to withstand it are more delicate things, sacrosanct things which are outside the commercial traffic of men. Just as all qualitative differences between commodities are effaced in money, so money, a radical leveller, effaces all distinctions. But money itself is a commodity, an external object, capable of becoming the private property of an individual. Thus social power becomes private power in the hands of a private person.
  • Luat in corpore, qui non habet in ære.
    • Who can not pay with money, must pay with his body.
    • Law Maxim. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Late to bed and late to wake will keep you long on money and short on mistakes.
  • If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
    • Charles C. Mayer, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Seventy-fourth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 5357
  • And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, — what will compare with it?
  • Money couldn't buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.
  • Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven; for ev’n in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy.
  • Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms.
  • Les beaux yeux de ma cassette!
    Il parle d'elle comme un amant d'une maitresse.
    • The beautiful eyes of my money-box!
      He speaks of it as a lover of his mistress.
    • Molière, L'Avare, V, 3. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates.
  • I like to carry some cash because you feel like you can cope with any situation — such as being mugged. I always try to have about £50 in my pocket just for convenience, really.
    • David Mitchell, in his interview in with Nick McGarth The Daily Mail (16 July 2008).
  • Truly, it is not want, but rather abundance, that breeds avarice.
    • Michel de Montaigne, in "That the taste of good and evil depends, for a good part, on the idea we have of them" in The Essays, Bk. I, Chapter 14, 1st edition (1580).
  • Common people do not make such distinction between money and land, as persons conversant in Law Matters do.
    • Lord Mansfield, Hope v. Taylor (1756), 1 Burr. Part IV. 272. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • It has been quaintly said "that the reason why money cannot be followed is, because it has no ear-mark ": But this is not true. The true reason is, upon account of the currency of it: it cannot be recovered after it has passed in currency.
    • Lord Mansfield, Miller v. Race (1785), 1 Burr. Part IV. 457. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.
  • I am a great friend to the action for money had and received: it is a very beneficial action, and founded on principles of eternal justice.
    • Lord Mansfield, C.J., Towers v. Barrett (1786), 1 T. R. 134. Reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 177.

O

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  • When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.
    • Alanis Obomsawin, Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?: A Collection of Essays (1972), edited by Ralph Osborne, as quoted in “Conversations with North American Indians” by Ted Poole, Page 43, Neewin Publishing Company, Toronto.
  • Money is one of humankind's most important inventions and is now the basis for decision-making at most levels of society. The downside to our preoccupation with monetary values is that our money system does not take into account all the real costs and values of living. Money is not directly involved with natural wealth, which is not only the ultimate basis for human material wealth but also provides the life-supporting goods and services such as air and water recycling and purification, soil enrichment, atmospheric balances, and so on. Nor can money adequately valuate the aesthetic enjoyment of natural beauty, the arts, literature, and so on. ... the gross domestic product (GDP), the standard measure of economic progress, does not include social and ecological costs.
  • If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
    • Aristotle Onassis, quoted in Aristotle Onassis: A Biography (1977), by Nicholas Fraser.
  • Since money belongs to the community … it would seem that the community may control it as it wills, and therefore may make as much profit from alteration as it likes, and treat money as its own property.
    • Nicole Oresme Traictie de la Première Invention des Monnoies (1355) Ch. 22: Whether the community may alter money.
  • In pretio pretium nunc est; dat census honores,
    Census amicitias; pauper ubique jacet.
    • Money nowadays is money; money brings office; money gains friends; everywhere the poor man is down.
    • Ovid, Fasti, I. 217. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.

P

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Please review how to edit this article to conform to a higher standard of article quality.
100 peso bill we have now all this is an we have now all this is an Philippine peso we have in English Series.
1 Peso bill Philippine peso in Series of 1918 black on green on back green
  • Let your way of life be free of the love of money, while you are content with the present things. For he has said: “I will never leave you, and I will never abandon you.”
    • Paul of Tarsus, Hebrews 13:5
  • My father told me that when you're working, don't stop to count your money.
    • Pelé, as reported in Pelé: A biography (1976), James Haskins, p. 132.
  • There are a precious few whose studies are sound and honest and whose goal is truth and virtue. This is the knowledge of things and the improvement of moral conduct. … As for the others, of whom there is an enormous mass, some seek glory, an insipid, yet gleaming prize. But the majority aims only at the gleam of money, which is not only a rather poor reward, but dirty, and neither equal to the trouble involved, nor worthy of efforts of the mind.
  • Quid faciant leges, ubi sola pecunia regnat?
    • What power has law where only money rules?
    • Petronius, Satyricon, Cap. XIV.
  • Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?
  • Money is a dangerous subject. Polite conversation avoids it. You may talk about economics, but not raw money…
    • Max Plowman, in "Money and The Merchant" in Adelphi magazine (September 1931).
  • "Get Money, money still!
    And then let virtue follow, if she will."
    This, this the saving doctrine preach'd to all,
    From low St. James' up to high St. Paul.
    • Alexander Pope, First Book of Horace, Epistle I, line 79. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Trade it may help, society extend,
    But lures the Pirate, and corrupts the friend:
    It raises armies in a nation's aid,
    But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
    • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 29. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • When Gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent.

R

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  • Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.
    • François Rabelais, Works, Book II, Chapter XVI. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Point d'argent, point de Suisse.
    • No money, no Swiss.
    • Jean Racine, Plaideurs, I. 1. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Judas: I don't need your blood money!
Annas: But you might as well take it. We think that you should.
Caliphas: Think of the things you could do with that money, Choose any charity - give to the poor. We've noted your motives. We've noted your feelings. This isn't blood money - it's a ...
Annas: A fee.
Caliphas: A fee nothing more.
  • Ohhhh
    All I see is signs
    All I see is dollar signs
    Ohhhh
    Money on my mind
    Money, money on my mind.
  • I am more concerned with the return of my money than the return on my money.
  • Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting.
    • Billy Rose, as quoted in The New York Post (26 October 1957).
  • The lifeblood of our economy, indeed the whole world's economy, is based on money. Without a currency that can be trusted, the entire structure of economics, the division of labor itself, falls apart. Our wealth, our well being and our very lives are dependent on the continuation of this highly complex structure called the economy and it in turn is dependent on sound money. We have placed our trust for the management of this money on a gang of thieves called the Federal Reserve. They have now clearly demonstrated their inability to restrain themselves from the excesses that can be perpetrated within a paper money system. If we want to survive as a nation, we need to eliminate both the Federal Reserve and paper money.
  • It is when money looks like manna that we truely delight in it.
  • Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you’ll scream that money is evil.
  • Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
  • Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by Compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
    • Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957), p. 385.
  • I think it a greater theft to Rob the dead of their Praise, then the Living of their Money.
    • Edward Ravenscroft, Preface to Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia (1686); quoted in The Shakespeare Allusion-Book: A Collection of Allusions to Shakespeare from 1591-1700, vol 2, ed. John Munro (1932).
  • I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake.
    • John D. Rockefeller, as quoted in Money and Class in America (1988) by Lewis H. Lapham, note to Ch. 8.
  • Never allow yourself to get caught without a loose million handy.
    • Lord Nathaniel Rothschild, As quoted as being one of his favourite sayings (on a visit to Cecil Rhodes in South Africa) in the book by Antony Thomas, Rhodes, The Race for Africa (1996).
  • The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.
    • Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President, letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373.
  • I worship freedom; I abhor restraint, trouble, dependence. As long as the money in my purse lasts, it assures my independence; it relieves me of the trouble of finding expedients to replenish it, a necessity which has always inspired me with dread; but the fear of seeing it exhausted makes me hoard it carefully. The money which a man possesses is the instrument of freedom.; that which we eagerly pursue is the instrument of slavery. Therefore I hold fast to that which I have, and desire nothing.
  • The best way to keep money in perspective is to have some.
  • Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money,—he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it.

S

[edit]
Money expresses all qualitative differences of things in terms of "how much?" Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they cover. ~ Georg Simmel
  • Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.
  • Money is human happiness in the abstract; and so the man who is no longer capable of enjoying such happiness in the concrete, sets his whole heart on money.
  • People are often reproached because their desires are directed mainly to money and they are fonder of it than of anything else. Yet it is natural and even inevitable for them to love that which, as an untiring Proteus, is ready at any moment to convert itself into the particular object of our fickle desires and manifold needs. Thus every other blessing can satisfy only one desire and one need; for instance, food is good only to the hungry, wine only for the healthy, medicine for the sick, a fur coat for winter, women for youth, and so on. Consequently, all these are only … relatively good. Money alone is the absolutely good thing because it meets not merely one need in concreto, but needs generally in abstracto.
    • Arthur Schopenhauer, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life,” Parerga und Paralipomena, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 347-348.
  • Money never made any man rich. Contrariwise, there is not any man that hath gathered store of it together that is not become more covetous.
  • Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses; why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.
  • Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
    The signet of its all-enslaving power,
    Upon a shining ore, and called it gold;
    Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
    The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
    The mob of peasants, nobles, priests and kings,
    And with blind feelings reverence the power
    That grinds them to the dust of misery.
    But in the temple of their hireling hearts
    Gold is a living god and rules in scorn
    All earthly things but virtue.
  • Money expresses all qualitative differences of things in terms of "how much?" Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they cover.
  • The brutality of a man purely motivated by monetary considerations … often does not appear to him at all as a moral delinquency, since he is aware only of a rigorously logical behavior, which draws the objective consequences of the situation.
    • Georg Simmel, “Domination,” On Individuality and Social Forms (1971), p. 110.
  • Worldly success, measured by the accumulation of money, is no doubt a very dazzling thing; and all men are naturally more or less the admirers of worldly success.
    • Samuel Smiles (1812–1904), Scottish author and reformer. 'Money: Its Use and Abuse', Self-Help (1856), Chapter 10.
  • Bread is made for laughter, and wine makes life enjoyable; but money answers every need.
  • πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:
ἀλλ᾽ ἡμεῖς τούτοις οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον, ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.
  • Many bad men are rich, many good men are poor. But we will not exchange wealth for virtue along with them. One man has money now, another has money at another time. Money goes around, whereas virtue endures.
  • The citizens themselves are willing, by their follies and obedience to money, to destroy this great city.
    • Solon, Elegiac Poems, in Early Greek Philosophy: Beginnings and Ionian Thinkers Loeb Classical Library Volume 525 (2016), p. 114
  • οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν οἷον ἄργυρος κακὸν νόμισμ᾽ ἔβλαστε. τοῦτο καὶ πόλεις πορθεῖ, τόδ᾽ ἄνδρας ἐξανίστησιν δόμων: τόδ᾽ ἐκδιδάσκει καὶ παραλλάσσει φρένας χρηστὰς πρὸς αἰσχρὰ πράγματ᾽ ἵστασθαι βροτῶν: πανουργίας δ᾽ ἔδειξεν ἀνθρώποις ἔχειν καὶ παντὸς ἔργου δυσσέβειαν εἰδέναι.
    • There is no institution so ruinous for men as money; money sacks cities, money drives men from their homes! Money by its teaching perverts men’s good minds so that they take to evil actions! Money has shown men how to practise villainy, and taught them impiousness in every action!
      • Sophocles, Creon in Antigone, line 295, Loeb Classical Library, Volume 21, p. 31
  • Among the misconceptions of economics is that it is something that tells you how to make money or run a business or predict the ups and downs of the stock market. But economics is not personal finance or business administration, and predicting the ups and downs of the stock market has yet to be reduced to a dependable formula. When economists analyze prices, wages, profits, or the international balance of trade, for example, it is from the standpoint of how decisions in various parts of the economy affect the allocation of scarce resources in a way that raises or lowers the material standard of living of the people as a whole.
    • Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Common-Sense Guide to the Economy (2015)
  • In reality money, like numbers and law, is a category of thought. There is a monetary, just as there is a juristic and a mathematical and a technical, thinking of the world-around.
    • Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), (1918–22).
  • Gold and silver are but merchandise, as well as cloth or linen; and that nation that buys the least, and sells the most, must always have the most money.
    • Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773). Letter, 'Miscellaneous Pieces,' Letters to his Son, 5th ed. (1774), Vol. IV, p. 332.
  • If all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go round.
    • Christina Stead in House of All Nations, Sc. 12 (written in 1938), published by Angus and Robertson (1988).
  • But as they all say if we sell our home what will we have for it, money, and what is the use of that money, money goes and after it is gone then where are we, beside we have all we want, what can we do with money except lose it, money to spend is not very welcome, if you have it and you try to spend it, well spending money is an anxiety, saving money is a comfort and a pleasure, economy is not a duty it is a comfort, avarice is an excitement, but spending money is nothing, money spent is money non-existent, money saved is money realised...
  • Meanwhile Hollywood has gone nuts. Carol [his wife] turned down a writing job for me at five thousand a week. She said, "Why Jesus Christ then I'd have to find a new bank every week." Just what in hell could a writing man do that would be worth five thousand a week. The whole place is nuts...
    • John Steinbeck, Letter (written in California) to the film editor and director, Lloyd Nestor (17 May 1939). Reproduced in Christies New York Printed Books and manuscripts sale catalogue, 20 May 1988.
  • The flour merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavour to earn money to pay all these, then, indeed, we find the interest.
    • Lucy Stone, as quoted in Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings, part 3, by Miriam Schnier (1972).
  • Her life was a complete mess, true, but it could be straightened out. All it would take was money. Money could straighten out anything, if you had enough of it.

T

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  • What is fiat money? you may ask. Essentially, it is an inconvertible or unbacked currency usually issued by the government/central bank. Fiat money is currency of unlimited supply.
  • But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.
    • Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1835, published 1842), Stanza 53. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Pecuniam in loco negligere maximum est lucrum.
    • To despise money on some occasions is a very great gain.
    • Terence, Adelphi, II. 2. 8. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have a little easier life.
    • Nikola Tesla as quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); also in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 82
  • What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her!
  • Ploutos, no wonder mortals worship you:
    You are so tolerant of their sins!
    • Theognis, Elegies, D. Wender, trans., 523.
  • Everyone in the world needs money – to get paid, to trade, to live. Paper money is an ancient technology and an inconvenient means of payment. You can run out of it. It wears out. It can get lost or stolen. In the twenty-first century, people need a form of money that's more convenient and secure, something that can be accessed from anywhere with a PDA or an Internet connection. Of course, what we're calling 'convenient' for American users will be revolutionary for the developing world. Many of these countries' governments play fast and loose with their currencies. They use inflation and sometimes wholesale currency devaluations, like we saw in Russia and several Southeast Asian countries last year [referring to the 1998 Russian and 1997 Asian financial crisis], to take wealth away from their citizens. Most of the ordinary people there never have an opportunity to open an offshore account or to get their hands on more than a few bills of a stable currency like U.S. dollars. Eventually PayPal will be able to change this. In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before. It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or Pounds or Yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure.
    • Peter Thiel, In a speech delivered at PayPal in 1999, as remembered by Eric M. Jackson in The PayPal Wars
  • It's something very personal, a very important thing. Hell! It's a family motto. Are you ready Jerry? I wanna make sure you're ready, brother. Here it is: Show me the money. SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY! Jerry, it is such a pleasure to say that! Say it with me one time, Jerry.
  • Not greedy of filthy lucre.
    • I Timothy, III. 3. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • The love of money is the root of all evil.
    • I Timothy, VI. 10. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal — that there is no human relation between master and slave.
  • Money has been a consensual hallucination since we abolished the gold standard. It has value because we say it does. Why should a black-and-gold plastic rectangle be any different?
    • Brian Trent, Distant Gates of Eden Gleam (2015). Originally published in Crossed Genres magazine; reprinted in Mike Resnick (ed.) Funny Science Fiction
  • A man will be generally very old and feeble before he forgets how much money he has in the funds.
  • It may interest some if I state that during the last twenty years I have made by literature something near £70,000. As I have said before in these pages, I look upon the result as comfortable, but not splendid.
  • Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.
  • A fool and his money be soon at debate.
    • Thomas Tusser, Good Husbandry. "A fool and his money are soon parted." George Buchanan, tutor to James VI. of Scotland, to a courtier after winning a bet as to which could make the coarser verse. See Walsh, Handy Book of Literary Curiosities. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • Simple rules for saving money.
    To save half: When you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count to forty.
    To save three-quarters, count sixty.
    To save it all, count sixty-five.
    • Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad (1897), Chapter 50.

U

[edit]
  • Sex is like money; only too much is enough.

V

[edit]
  • Pecunia non olet
    • Money does not smell.
    • Vespasian, in his response on being reproached by his son on taking money as a tax on urine, collected from public urinals in Rome, as quoted by Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars: Vespasian.
  • Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
    • Voltaire in "Avarice" in the Philosophical Dictionary (1764).
  • It is more easy to write on money than to obtain it; and those who gain it, jest much at those who only know how to write about it.
  • When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
    • Voltaire, in a letter to Mme. D'Épinal Ferney (26 December 1760).
  • On en trouve [l'argent] toujours quand il s’agit d’aller faire tuer des hommes sur la frontière: il n’y en a plus quand il faut les sauver.
    • Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.
      • Voltaire, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, "Charity" (1770)

W

[edit]
  • Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow money to do it with.
    • Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Brown] in "Science and Natural History" in The London Punch Letters (1865-6).
  • Cash. I just am not happy when I don't have it. The minute I have it I have to spend it. And I just buy STUPID THINGS.
  • Money is the MOMENT to me.
    Money is my MOOD.
  • Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then give all you can.
    • John Wesley, Sermon 50 "The Use of Money" in The Works of the Reverend John Wesley, A.M. (1840) edited by John Emory, Vol. I, p. 446
    • Popularly paraphrased as:
      Make all you can,
      Save all you can,
      Give all you can.
  • We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people.
    • Daniel Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston, MA:Little, Brown, 1890), p. 413
  • Neither can anything we desire be got without money, or what money represents, i.e. without the command of exchangeable things.  All the things that we so often say "cannot be had for money" we might with equal truth say cannot be had or enjoyed without it.  Friendship cannot be had for money, but how often do the things that money commands enable us to form and develop our friendships!  …  But even "waiting" requires money, if not so much as marrying does.  In fact, a man can be neither a saint, nor a lover, nor a poet, unless he has comparatively recently had something to eat.  The things that money commands are strictly necessary to the realisation on earth of any programme whatsoever.  The range of things, then, that money can command in no case secures any of those experiences or states of consciousness which make up the whole body of ultimately desired things, and yet none of the things that we ultimately desire can be had except on the basis of the things that money can command.  Hence nothing that we really want can infallibly be secured by things that can be exchanged, but neither can it under any circumstances be enjoyed without them.
  • A dollar is something that you multiply — something that causes an expansion of your house and your mechanical equipment, something that accelerates like speed; and that may be also slowed up or deflated. It is a value that may be totally imaginary, yet can for a time provide half-realized dreams.
  • A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ...
  • We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world — no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
  • I get a few bruises, but I think of the money and I'm alright.
  • It is money makes the mare to trot.
    • John Wolcot, Ode to Pitt. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.
  • No, let the monarch's bags and coffers hold
    The flattering, mighty, nay, all-mighty gold.
  • I think this piece will help to boil thy pot.
    • John Wolcot, The bard complimenteth Mr. West on his Lord Nelson (c. 1790). (Probably first use of "pot-boiler."). Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 521-24.

X

[edit]
Those who take money are bound to carry out the work for which they get a fee, while I, because I refuse to take it, am not obliged to talk with anyone against my will. ~ Socrates
  • Those who take money are bound to carry out the work for which they get a fee, while I, because I refuse to take it, am not obliged to talk with anyone against my will.

Anonymous

[edit]
  • Money isn't everything, but it's way ahead of whatever's in second place.
    • Reportedly seen on a "sign in a Philadelphia bar and grill," as quoted in "Here's the Pitch" by Frank Finch, in The Los Angeles Times (June 10, 1958)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)

[edit]
  • All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
    • John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 25, 1787. Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (1853), vol. 8, p. 447.
  • Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it.
    • Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds, p. 20 (1915). Conwell, founder and first president of Temple University, delivered this address more than 6,000 times from 1877 until his death in 1925.
  • As this body has no authority to make anything whatever a tender in payment of private debts, it necessarily follows that nothing but gold and silver coin can be made a legal tender for that purpose, and that Congress cannot authorize the payment in any species of paper currency of any other debts but those due to the United States, or such debts of the United States as may, by special contract, be made payable in such paper.
    • Albert Gallatin, Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States, 1831, in Henry Adams, ed., The Writings of Albert Gallatin (1879), vol. 3, p. 235.
  • For the folk-community does not exist on the fictitious value of money but on the results of productive labour, which is what gives money its value.
    • Adolf Hitler, speech to the German Reichstag, January 30, 1937. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922–August 1939, trans. and ed. Norman H. Baynes, vol. 1, p. 937 (1969).
  • If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
    • Attributed to Thomas Jefferson; reported as "obviously spurious" in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989) (noting that "[a]lthough Jefferson was opposed to paper money... [i]nflation was listed in Webster's dictionary of 1864, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the OED gives 1920 as the earliest use of deflation"). See Misattributed below.
  • In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.
  • The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.
    • Attributed to Vladimir Ilich Lenin by John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920, reprinted 1971), p. 235. Keynes says, "Lenin is said to have declared …" Despite careful searching by the European Division of the Library of Congress, this has not been found in Lenin's writings and remains Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
  • God gave me my money. I believe the power to make money is a gift from God … to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.
    • John D. Rockefeller, interview in 1905.—Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers, an American Dynasty, chapter 3, p. 48 (1976). Rockefeller assumed giving to charity was a Christian duty, and did so throughout his life. Later in life he began to "have the semimystical feeling that he had been especially selected as the frail vessel for the great fortune" (p. 48).
  • "Not worth a Continental dam" had its origin about this time [1780]. It is not a profane expression. A "dam" is an Indian coin of less value than one cent and a Continental one cent was next to worthless when it took six pounds, or about thirty dollars to buy a "warm dinner".
    • Oliver Taylor, Historic Sullivan, p. 97 (1909), footnote. Other versions of this phrase include "Not worth a Continental" and "Not worth a Continental Damn". While other writers do not include the Indian connection, they agree the phrase arose when Continental money became worthless toward the end of the Revolution. See Mitford M. Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms, p. 383 (1951).
  • He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread.
    • Daniel Webster, speech delivered at Niblo's Saloon, New York City, March 15, 1837. The Works of Daniel Webster, 10th ed. (1857), vol. 1, p. 377.


Misattributed

[edit]
  • In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called 'Colonial Scrip.' We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one. In this manner, by creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay, to anyone. You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury.
    • Attributed to Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. These words do not appear there, although he expressed vaguely similar ideas in his 1729 essay on paper currency. The attribution may date to a 1949 address to the Canadian House of Commons by Solon Low.
  • It is perhaps well enough that the people of the Nation do not know or understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
    • Variant: If the American people knew the corruption in our money system there would be revolution before morning.
    • Attributed to Henry Ford by Charles Binderup (March 19, 1937), Congressional Record—House 81:2528. The quote is preceded by "It was Henry Ford who said, in substance, this," indicating that it was not a direct quote, but a paraphrase of his memoir My Life and Work
  • If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
    • Attributed to Thomas Jefferson, The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809). No such document exists. The book Respectfully Quoted says this is "obviously spurious", noting that the OED's earliest citation for the word "deflation" in its financial sense is from 1920. Before that, the term "contraction" was used instead. The earliest known appearance of this quote is from 1935 (Testimony of Charles C. Mayer, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Seventy-fourth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 5357, p. 799).
  • I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy.
    • Attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Not found in Lincoln's works. This earliest this quote has been found is 1941.
  • I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war.
    • Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but not found in his works and denounced by his personal secretary as a forgery
  • The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.
  • History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.
    • Attributed to James Madison, 4th US President. This is actually a comment by Olive Cushing Dwinell in her book The Story of Our Money (1946), pp. 71–72.
  • The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages...will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests.
    • Attributed to Senator John Sherman in a letter supposedly sent from the Rothschild Brothers of London to New York bankers Ikleheimer, Morton, and Vandergould, June 25, 1863. The letters are forgeries that could not have been written at the time alleged, since they refer to an 1876 court case. Further, no evidence of a firm with the name "Ikleheimer, Morton, and Vandergould" has been found.
  • If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.
    • Attributed to an editorial in the Times of London in 1865. No such editorial ever appeared. The earliest known appearance is in The Flaming Sword, Vol. XII, No. 42 (2 September 1898), p. 7

See also

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