Wealth

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency."

"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."

""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"."

"He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws!"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."

"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."

"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."

"Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

"If the love of money is the root of all evil, the need of money is most certainly the root of all despair."

"Divitiæ bona ancilla, pessima domina."

"L'argent est un bon serviteur, mais un méchant maître."

"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."

"One of the wisest things anybody ever said to me was that if all you ever care about is money, money is all that will ever care for you."

"If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom He gives it."

"Money is the devil's dung."

"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."

"Money is the currency of the world, but it rarely is our currency."

"Money should buy you one thing only and that is freedom."

"Get rich, if you will — you take great risks. But Christianity does not say to any man, You must be worth only so much, extend your business only so far. It says, Use your riches for the glory of God. If they once usurp His place, woe to you!"

"Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends, An incarnation of fat dividends."

"There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them."

"It is not the fact that a man has riches which keeps him from the kingdom of heaven, but the fact that riches have him."

"Worldly wealth is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase."

"How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns!"

"Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly."

"The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil."

"Much learning shows how little mortals know; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy."

"Can wealth give happiness? look round and see What gay distress! what splendid misery! Whatever fortunes lavishly can pour, The mind annihilates, and calls for more."

"He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he be exalted above his neighbors because he hath more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine!"

"Repente dives nemo factus est bonus."

"If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel."

"The man is mechanically turned, and made for getting…. It was very prettily said that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom Heaven is pleased to bestow it"