Commerce

"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."

"In essence, money is a lifeblood flowing through ourselves, our society, our global human community, and should be acknowledged and treated consciously."

"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."

"Nec quicquam acrius quam pecuniæ damnum stimulat."

"That's just a lie we tell poor people to keep them from rioting in the streets."

"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves."

"As a rule, there is nothing that offends us more than a new kind of money."

"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 these iridescence, the subtle magical patterns, the strict lines!"

"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as it has been rendered, the evidence of its being due must be given up to the debtor to be destroyed, and it will be no longer current.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."

"Up and down the City Road, In and out the Eagle, That's the way the money goes— Pop goes the weasel!"

"It's no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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"

"Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms."

"Les beaux yeux de ma cassette! Il parle d'elle comme un amant d'une maitresse."

"Public opinion always wants easy money, that is, low interest rates."

"Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money without a corresponding increase in the demand for money, i.e., for cash holdings."

"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."

"Truly, it is not want, but rather abundance, that breeds avarice."

"Money is gold, and nothing else."

"Common people do not make such distinction between money and land, as persons conversant in Law Matters do."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 and , 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."

"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."

"In pretio pretium nunc est; dat census honores, Census amicitias; pauper ubique jacet."

"Children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children."

"For 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."

"My father told me that when you're working, don't stop to count your money."

"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?"

"Money It's a crime Share it fairly But don't take a slice of my pie. Money So they say Is the root of all evil today."

"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…"

"Of what use is money in the hands of fools when they have no heart to acquire wisdom?"