Money is the alienated essence of man's labor and life; and this alien essence dominates him as he worships it.

Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.

MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.

Money is the universal equivalent form of all commodities, which already show in their prices that they ideally represent a specific sum of money, expect to be transformed into money, and only receive the form in which they can be converted into use-values for their possessor by changing places with money.

The reality of money is of the same type as the reality of centimeters, grams, hours, or lines of longitude. Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion.

Money is never a prize; it’s a commodity, a means for getting things done. Money simply transfers economic value from place to place so that people are able to work together.

Like any other medium, it is a staple, a natural resource. As an outward and visible form of the urge to change and to exchange, it is a corporate image, depending on society for its institutional status. Apart from communal participation, money is meaningless, as Robinson Crusoe discovered when he found the coins in the wrecked ship: I smiled to myself at the sight of this money. “O drug!” said I aloud, “What are thou good for? Thou art not worth to me — no, not the taking off the ground: one of those knives is worth all this heap: I have no manner of use for thee; e’en remain where thou art and, go to the bottom, as a creature whose life is not worth saving.” However, upon second thoughts, I took it away; and wrapping it all in a piece of canvas, I began to think of making another raft … Primitive commodity money, like the magical words of nonliterate society, can be a storehouse of power, and has often become the occasion of feverish economic activity. The natives of the South Seas, when they are so engaged, seek no economic advantage. Furious application to production may be followed by deliberate destruction of the products in order to achieve moral prestige. Even in these “potlatch” cultures, however, the effect of the currencies was to expedite and to accelerate human energies in a way that had become universal in the ancient world with the technology of the phonetic alphabet. Money, like writing, has the power to specialize and to rechannel human energies and to separate functions, just as it translates and reduces one kind of work to another. Even in the electronic age it has lost none of this power.

Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.

Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion. But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing, and utilities for every person on earth.

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

Because in the modern world money does not represent value, Mr. Tighe — money represents debt. And the more debt that is created in the world, the more money there is.

Is money good? Is money good? Many negative-minded persons say, “Money is the root of all evil.” But the Bible says: Love of money is the root of all evil. And there is a big difference between the two even though one little word makes the difference.

money’s just an idea, it has power. Only it’s not real power. Just the promise of power. But that promise is enough so long as everyone keeps pretending it’s real. Stop pretending and it all falls apart.

Make no mistake about it; money is first and foremost about freedom. It is not about acquiring things nor flaunting it in front of family and friends. It is all about freedom. Freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Freedom to tell your boss or whoever is running your life to take a hike. The only boss I want to have in my life is money. All the rest is for the birds.