Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Money
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes—
Pop goes the weasel!
Popular street song in England in the late Fifties, sung at the Grecian Theatre. Attributed to W. R. Mandale.
Money makes the man.
Aristodemus. See Alcæus—Fragment. Miscel. Songs.
L’argent est un bon serviteur, mais un méchant maître.
Money is a good servant but a bad master.
Quoted by Bacon. (French Proverb.) In Menegiana. II. 296. 1695.
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
Bacon—Of Sedition.
The sinews of business (or state).
Bion. In Life of Bion by Diogenes Laertius Bk. IV. Ch. VII. Sec. 3.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader. P. 35. (Ed. 1887).
Still amorous, and fond, and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto I. L. 687.
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.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto XII. St. 12.
Money, which is of very uncertain value, and sometimes has no value at all and even less.
Carlyle—Frederick the Great. Bk. IV. Ch. III.
Make ducks and drakes with shillings.
George Chapman—Eastward Ho. Sc. 1. Act I. (Written by Chapman, Jonson, Marston.)
The way to resumption is to resume.
Salmon P. Chase—Letter to Horace Greeley. May 17, 1866.
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.”
Chesterfield—Letters. Nov. 6, 1747; also Feb. 5, 1750. Quoting Lowndes.
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.
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. Bk. I. L. 75.
Stamps God’s own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade.
Cowper—Table Talk. L. 421.
The sinews of affairs are cut.
Attributed to Demosthenes by Æschines. Adv. Ctesiphon.
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.
Benj. Disraeli. In the House of Commons, Feb. 19, 1850. Endymion. Ch. XCVI.
“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.
Wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.
Ecclesiastes. X. 19.
The elegant simplicity of the three per cents.
Lord Eldon. See Campbell—Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Vol. X. Ch. CCXII.
Almighty gold.
Farquhar—Recruiting Officer. III. 2.
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
Franklin—Poor Richard’s Almanac. Same idea in Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
This bank-note world.
Fitz-Greene Halleck—Alnwick Castle.
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.
Herbert—The Temple. The Church Porch. St. 26.
Fight thou with shafts of silver, and o’ercome
When no force else can get the masterdome.
Herrick—Money Gets the Mastery.
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.
Hood—Miss Kilmansegg. Her Moral.
Quærenda pecunia primum est; virtus post nummos.
Money is to be sought for first of all; virtue after wealth.
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 53.
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.
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.
Et genus et formam regina pecunia donat.
All powerful money gives birth and beauty.
Horace—Epistles. 1. 6. 37.
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.
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.
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 Mag. Nov., 1836.
Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
And almost every vice, almighty gold.
Ben Jonson—Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.
Get money; still get money, boy;
No matter by what means.
Ben Jonson—Every Man in His Humour. Act II. Sc. 3.
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. III. 143.
Ploratur lacrimis amissa pecunia veris.
Money lost is bewailed with unfeigned tears.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 134.
Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit.
The love of money grows as the money itself grows.
Juvenal—Satires. XIV. 139.
Dollar Diplomacy.
Term applied to Secretary Knox’s activities in securing opportunities for the investment of American capital abroad, particularly in Latin America and China; also in Honduras and Liberia. Defended by President Taft, Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1912. Huntington Wilson aided Knox in framing the Policy. See Harper’s Weekly, April 23, 1910. P. 8.
Luat in corpore, qui non habet in ære.
Who can not pay with money, must pay with his body.
Law Maxim.
Nec quicquam acrius quam pecuniæ damnum stimulat.
Nothing stings more deeply than the loss of money.
Livy—Annales. XXX. 44.
Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.
William Lowndes, Sec. of Treasury under William III, George I.
Money brings honor, friends, conquest, and realms.
Milton—Paradise Regained. Bk. II. L. 422.
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.
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. St. 13. FitzGerald’s trans. (“Promise” for “credit”; “Music” for “rumble” in 2nd ed.)
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.
“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.
Pope—First Book of Horace. Ep. I. L. 79.
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.
Pope—Moral Essays. Ep. III. L. 29.
Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.
Rabelais—Works. Bk. II. Ch. XVI.
Point d’argent, point de Suisse.
No money, no Swiss.
Racine—Plaideurs. I. 1.
When I was stamp’d, some coiner with his tools
Made me a counterfeit.
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 5.
For they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 173.
Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 175.
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.
Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 78.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.
Tennyson—Locksley Hall. St. 53.
Pecuniam in loco negligere maximum est lucrum.
To despise money on some occasions is a very great gain.
Terence—Adelphi. II. 2. 8.
Not greedy of filthy lucre.
I Timothy. III. 3.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
I Timothy. VI. 10.
A fool and his money be soon at debate.
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.
It is money makes the mare to trot.
Wolcot—Ode to Pitt.
No, let the monarch’s bags and coffers hold
The flattering, mighty, nay, all-mighty gold.
Wolcot—To Kieu Long. Ode IV.
I think this piece will help to boil thy pot.
Wolcot—The bard complimenteth Mr. West on his Lord Nelson (c. 1790). (Probably first use of “pot-boiler.”)