Quotes about money

17 real sentences about money, left by people who came before us, from c. 18th–17th century BC to 1926, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.

Ibgatum

c. 18th–17th century BC · Babylonia

As, my lord, thou hast heard, the enemy has carried off my oxen. Never before have I sent to thee, my lord. Now I have caused a letter to be brought to thee, my lord. Do thou, my lord, send me one young cow.

A clay-tablet letter to his master · in place of the original: the English translation by C. H. W. Johns (1904)

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Confucius 孔子

5th century BC · Lu, Spring and Autumn China

"Eating coarse rice and drinking water, with a bent arm for a pillow: there is joy in that too. Wealth and rank gained without right are to me like floating clouds."

子曰：「飯疏食飲水，曲肱而枕之，樂亦在其中矣。不義而富且貴，於我如浮雲。」

Analects, book 7 (Shu'er)

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Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis

c. AD 90 · Roman Empire

You will always be poor, Aemilianus, if you are poor now. These days wealth is given to no one but the rich.

Semper pauper eris, si pauper es, Aemiliane. Dantur opes nullis nunc nisi divitibus.

Epigrams 5.81

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Wang Fanzhi 王梵志

c. 7th century · Tang China

Other people ride big horses. I alone sit on a donkey. I look back at the man carrying firewood, and feel a little better.

他人騎大馬，我獨跨驢子。回顧擔柴漢，心下較些子。

A poem of Wang Fanzhi, from a Dunhuang manuscript

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Du Fu 杜甫

759 · Tang China

Afraid of the shame of an empty purse, I keep one coin, just to look at.

囊空恐羞澀，留得一錢看。

"Empty Purse," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Yang Wanli 楊萬里

later 12th century · Song China

Wild chrysanthemums and old moss each mint their coins, golden yellow and copper green vying to be the lovelier. Heaven pays them out to the poor poet, but they buy only clear sorrow, never a field.

野菊荒苔各鑄錢，金黄銅綠兩爭妍。天公支與窮詩客，只買清愁不買田。

"Written in Jest"

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Kamo no Chomei 鴨長明

1212 · Kamakura Japan · In his hut in the hills, after living through a great fire, a whirlwind, a famine and an earthquake

Only this temporary hut is peaceful and free of fear. Small as it is, there is a bed to lie on at night and a seat to sit on by day. It lacks nothing as a shelter for one body.

たゞかりの庵のみ、のどけくしておそれなし。ほどせばしといへども、夜臥す床あり、ひる居る座あり。一身をやどすに不足なし。

Hojoki (An Account of My Hut)

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In my days of study I meant to set the world in order. In old age I find I am content with Yan Hui's poverty. For wealth and rank there are rivals, and it is hard to lay hands on them. Woods and springs have no keeper, and there a man can rest.

讀書當日志經綸晩歲還甘顏氏貧富貴有爭難下手林泉無禁可安身

Hwadam jip, "My Thoughts"

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Bak Inro 朴仁老

1611 · Joseon Korea · The evening he went to borrow an ox for ploughing and came home without one

"I'll lend you the ox some time," he had said, offhandedly, and I took his house for a kind one. In the moonless dusk I hurried there, stumbling, and stood alone in the dark outside the tight-shut gate, and coughed a loud "ahem" for a long while, until: "Well, who is that?" "It is I, who have no shame."

쇼 ᄒᆞᆫ 젹 듀마 ᄒᆞ고 엄섬이 ᄒᆞᄂᆞᆫ 말삼 친절(親切)호라 너긴 집의 달 업슨 황혼(黃昏)의 허위허위 다라 가셔 구디 다ᄃᆞᆫ 문(門) 밧긔 어득히 혼자 서셔 큰 기ᄎᆞᆷ 아함이를 양구(良久)토록 ᄒᆞ온 후(後)에 어화 긔 뉘신고 염치(廉恥) 업산 ᄂᆡ옵노라

The gasa "Nuhangsa" (Song of a Poor Alley), Nogye jip, book 3

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Adam Smith

1776 · Kirkcaldy, Scotland · Edinburgh

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

The Wealth of Nations, book 1, chapter 2

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Charles Dickens

1850 · London, England · Mr. Micawber, just out of debtors' prison, to the young David. He adds that in short you are for ever floored, as he is himself

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

David Copperfield, chapter 12, Mr. Micawber's advice

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Henry David Thoreau

1854 · Massachusetts, USA

a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Walden

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Henry David Thoreau

1854 · Massachusetts, USA

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Walden, "Economy"

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Louisa May Alcott

1869 · Concord, Massachusetts, USA

Paid up all the debts, thank the Lord!--every penny that money can pay,--and now I feel as if I could die in peace. My dream is beginning to come true; and if my head holds out I'll do all I once hoped to do.

Journal

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