Money

“ In the first case the money is as an atmosphere surrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but in the second, it is as a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for the most part perishing in it. ”

“ You’ve no idea of the money engaged in productive industry, money earned by hard years of labor and economy, money held in trust for widows and orphans, money stolen from banks and corporations, money abstracted by clerks and office boys, is carried into Wall Street, in the vain hope of acquiring a sudden fortune, and there remains. ”

“ Who pays this money? Who is it that buys every dollar's worth of goods that is brought here to pay to these hands who work on the public works? Is there a man at work there but who gets a portion of money and store-pay? And with the exception of what the merchants here pay in on tithing, is there a dollar's worth of store-pay to be got without paying the money for it? Is there a light of glass, a pound of nails, a pound of rope, or anything else brought here from the east that the money is not paid for? ”

“ Money, which is so commonly understood as the synonyme of wealth, is more especially the term in use to denote it when it is the subject of borrowing. When one person lends to another, as well as when he pays wages or rent to another, what he transfers is not the mere money, but a right to a certain value of the produce of the country, to be selected at pleasure ”

“ But this spending of money somehow seems to bring us closer to civilization for the moment and we join the churning mass of men within, whose hobnailed shoes produce a great pounding and scraping sound and whose voices are raised in a constant babble of conversation which only the sharp ting, ting of the cash register bells can punctuate. ”

“ Money in millions simply flowed from hands to hands, and thence to a third pair. In one hour colossal riches were created, but then many former firms burst, and yesterday’s men of wealth turned into beggars. ”

“ You are all aware that I have asked the favor of your company to-day in order to discuss a serious matter involving the expenditure of a large sum of money. I wish to avail myself of the united wisdom of those present to enable me to use for good and not for evil the enormous wealth which has so suddenly dropped from the skies, as it were, into my hands. ”

“ Money is not a mere commodity, it is also the standard or the measure by which to estimate and compare the value of everything else that is bought and sold, and if it be, as it undoubtedly is, the duty of Government to adopt every practicable means for rendering all foot-rules of the same length, and all bushels of the same capacity, it is still more incumbent upon it to omit nothing that may serve to render money, or the measure of value—a measure which is undoubtedly of the greatest importance—uniform or steady in its value. ”

“ Money was given to the servants to make use of: the unprofitable servant dug in the earth, and hid his lord's money. Well, we, in our political and spiritual application of this, say, that of course money doesn't mean money: it means wit, it means intellect, it means influence in high quarters, it means everything in the world except itself. ”

“ "Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labour, 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 credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it.
"Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. ”

“ Spend your wealth, if you please, in whatever indulgences you have a taste for; but your wealth is not the indulgences, it is the sum of money, or the annual money income, with which you purchase them. ”

“ Money meant to me power—the kind of power one could grasp by striving and sacrifice. Why, I've walked the streets of Richmond with five cents in my pocket, and the dream of uncounted millions in my brain. ”

“ That devastating omniscience! That noxious, horn-spectacled refinement! And the money that such refinement means! For after all, what is there behind it, except money? Money for the right kind of education, money for influential friends, money for leisure and peace of mind, money for trips to Italy. Money writes books, money sells them. Give me not righteousness, O Lord, give me money, only money. ”

“ What a glorious time for enterprising contractors, what a seductive season for Congressmen to help a friend for a little share in the profits, what a carnival of fraud, what a flying about of stray millions! For, mind you, money will be no object; on the contrary, it must be spent, and the more spent the better, for the greenbacks must be got out, in obedience to the mandate, "to make and keep the volume of the currency equal to the wants of trade." ”

“ So soon as they asked themselves what is really meant by money—what it is in its essential characters, and the precise nature of the functions it performs—they reflected that money, like other things, is only a desirable possession on account of its uses; and that these, instead of being, as they delusively appear, indefinite, are of a strictly defined and limited description, namely, to facilitate the distribution of the produce of industry according to the convenience of those among whom it is shared. ”

“ Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; ”

“ Money, which you developed as the medium of exchange to facilitate accumulation, store of value, and property transfer, grew into the agency of tribute or usury power, progressively expanding to an extent comparable to that of an enormous, monster Octopus Colossus, covering and holding your entire earth within its grasp. Each of his tentacles is a symbol representing your economic and other ills. ”

“ money is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and bank notes are money. ”

“ When you manufacture this so-called money by merely printing a few words on a slip of paper, it apparently costs nothing. You are deluding yourselves with the idea that you are creating wealth, without stopping to think of the ultimate day of reckoning which demands the settlement of accounts. ”

“ Look round you, silly child. What gives me this house—this furniture—everything? Money. What feeds you and clothes you? Money. What gives position, consideration, power, dignity? Money. Rank without money is contemptible. ”

“ A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you than the ninety-and-nine which you had to work for, and money won at faro or in stocks snuggles into your heart in the same way. ”

“ Though money, either coin or paper, serves generally as the deed of assignment, both to the smaller and to the more considerable portion, it is itself altogether different from what is assigned by it. ”

“ Money is a current and legal Measure of Services; for the end and in the way in which Money alone originates and becomes current its material must be a valuable commodity; and after centuries of experiments and exclusions no civilized People now tolerate any other commodity in this relation than gold or silver. ”

“ Does the value of your savings lie so heavily upon your hands that you want to get rid of it? If so, then, and only then, by all means follow the lead of your greenback and fiat-money apostles, who promise to relieve you of your cares by a kind of money which in fact will relieve you of the value of your saved earnings. But, if you are the sensible men I take you to be, you will not forget that the first rule of wisdom teaches you to make sure of that which you have before grasping at shadows beyond. Do you want your savings to be worth dollar for dollar? ”

“ And as economists have lost sight of this great function of money in relation to individual rights, so they have equally lost sight of its function as a representative of good things. That, for every good thing produced, so much money is put into everybody's pocket, is the one simple and primal truth for the public to know, and for economists to teach. ”

“ When we consider the transcendantly important character of the service which money performs—when we reflect that, without it, the achievement of an advanced civilization would be impossible, we can not escape the conclusion that, compared with the value of that service, the commodity value of any material on which the money function may be stamped is too trifling to merit serious attention. ”

“ Take money, for instance. Is it an inherent parameter or an expressly transcendent one? Making money indicates the existence of some merit, some inherent advantageous traits of the money-making individual. ”

“ All I asked was a chance to employ a little of the money that I saw about me—not to take it, but to employ it for a little while, a few days, perhaps only a few hours. Money breeds money. Why should I not use some of this idle money to pay me what I ought to have? ”

“ The lender might himself use the money to gratify his own desires. It is his money; he may use it, as he pleases, for his own gratification. Or he may himself employ it productively, and, at the end of the period, receive back his principal with the customary rate of profit. ”

“ I have advanced about twenty pounds of my own money on the bit I have on me. My own money, without allowing anything for work and labour done in the way of melting down, or for anxiety of mind, or for profit. ”

“ The value of money must depend, not on prices alone, but, as I have said, also on the standard of living, on wages, on hours of work, on the cost of things, on plenty and scarcity, on taxation, and on many other considerations. ”

“ As it is always by means of money that people provide for their different necessities, there grows up in their minds a powerful association leading them to regard money as wealth in a more peculiar sense than any other article; and even those who pass their lives in the production of the most useful objects, acquire the habit of regarding those objects as chiefly important by their capacity of being exchanged for money. ”

“ There will be a lively chorus of groaning and railing among them, for the miraculous paper money, which was to relieve them of their burdens, will, instead, relieve them of their property, and not in all cases at the same time of their debts. The paper money apostles promise to make business lively. Aye, my friends, if you are in debt, they will indeed make it lively for you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thirdly, as money is the medium of commerce, it is the king's prerogative, as the arbiter of domestic commerce, to give it authority or make it current. Money is an universal medium, or common standard, by comparison with which the value of all merchandize may be ascertained: or it is a sign, which represents the respective values of all commodities. ”

“ You don’t know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse. ”

“ In the bottom of the nest are thousands of dollar bills—and two-dollar bills—and five-dollar bills—and tens, and twenties, and fifties. There are enough of them to stuff a dozen Scarecrows. Why not use the money? ”

“ We have in the invaluable instrument called money a means of enabling every individual to order and pay for the particular things he desires over and above the things he must consume in order to remain alive, plus the things the State insists on his having and using whether he wants to or not ”

“ If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant object—life—instead of the immediate one—money. ”

“ The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. ”

“ And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success. ”

“ In a money economy those who have cash use it to pay their bills or settle their accounts.
Those who buy on credit pay interest to money lenders. The money lenders, later the bankers, make their profits by helping others to spend beyond their own means. ”

“ Does he himself want to work,to do something useful? Far from it. His money works for him, his money generates money, as the saying is, or in plain English: his money is the channel, through which the earnings of other, industrious people, flow into his pockets. ”

“ Money, in truth, can do much, but it cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and confine it there; and even spurn it back, when it wishes to get farther. ”