Money is a language for translating the work of the farmer into the work of the barber, doctor, engineer, or plumber.

—Marshall McLuhan, 1964

Exchange is no robbery.

—German proverb

Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, 2008

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society.

—Mark Twain, 1873

There is no profit without another’s loss.

—Roman proverb

The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.

—George Washington, 1786

The money we have is the means to liberty; that which we pursue is the means to slavery.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, c. 1770

Everyone lives by selling something.

—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1892

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.

—Charles Baudelaire, c. 1865

Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

—Aphra Behn, 1677

There is no blindness more insidious, more fatal, than this race for profit.

—Helen Keller, 1928

Lord, I do not ask that thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest.

—Kate Douglas Wiggin, 1898

A shopkeeper will never get the more custom by beating his customers; and what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.

—Josiah Tucker, 1766

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1774

Colonialism has meant selling our ore and being left with the holes.

—Samora Moisés Machel, c. 1976

We are a commercial people. We cannot boast of our arts, our crafts, our cultivation; our boast is in the wealth we produce.

—Ida M. Tarbell, 1904

Profit is profit even in Mecca.

—Nigerian proverb

Business is other people’s money.

—Delphine de Girardin, 1852

Trade is a social act.

—John Stuart Mill, 1859

Commerce has made all winds her ministers.

—John Sterling, 1843

The merchant always has fresh losses to expect, and the dread of base poverty forbids his rest.

—Decimus Magnus Ausonius, c. 390

The sea serves the pirate as well as the trader.

—Prudentius, c. 405

It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.

—Mary Lease, c. 1890

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

—Montesquieu, 1748

A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong.

—Ecclesiasticus, c. 180 BC

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with the necessities.

—John Lothrop Motley, 1858

More pernicious nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce.

—Benjamin Disraeli, 1880

Don’t try to make a profit on a bad trade; just try to find the best place to get out.

—Linda Bradford Raschke, 1992

We get a deal o’ useless things about us, only because we’ve got the money to spend.

—George Eliot, 1860

The money market is to a commercial nation what the heart is to man.

—William Pitt, 1805

Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.

—Lionel Jospin, 1998

Wherever commerce prevails there will be an inequality of wealth, and wherever the latter does a simplicity of manners must decline.

—James Madison, 1783

Wants keep pace with wealth always.

—Timothy Titcomb, 1859

You must not grow used to making money out of everything. One sees more people ruined than one has seen preserved by shameful gains.

—Sophocles, c. 442 BC

Commerce tends to wear off those prejudices which maintain distinction and animosity between nations.

—William Robertson, 1769

Corporations have neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be damned.

—Chinese proverb

Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.

—Oliver Goldsmith, 1770

God is making commerce his missionary.

—Joseph Cook, c. 1877

The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.

—Simone de Beauvoir, 1970

A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.

—Robert G. Ingersoll, 1882

One man’s loss is another man’s profit.

—Michel de Montaigne, c. 1580