Wealth

"Everyone has to make up their mind if money is money or money isn't money and sooner or later they always do decide that money is money."

"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..."

"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."

"The world over, private financial markets fail when it comes to the very poor, ... Mainstream banks do not seek out poor communities—because that’s not where the money is."

"Money can always be traced. It leaves a trail of slime behind it wherever it goes."

"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."

"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."

"Pecuniam in loco negligere maximum est lucrum."

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"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."

"The love of money is the root of all evil."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"Sex is like money; only too much is enough."

"Pecunia non olet"

"Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him."

"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."

"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."

"Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow money to do it with."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Money isn't everything, but it's way ahead of whatever's in second place."

"Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic."