quotations about gold
Gold is called the bait of sin, the snare of souls, and the hook of death; which being aptly applied may be compared to a fire, whereof a little is good to warm one, but too much will burn him altogether.
ROBERT FILMER
attributed, Day's Collacon
I never made promises lightly and there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left we'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold
STING
"Fields of Gold"
The love of gold is a vertiginous pool, sucking all into it to destroy it; it is troubled and uneven, giddy and unsafe, serving no end but its own, and that also in a restless and uneasy motion.
JEREMY TAYLOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
Who values gold above all, considers all else as trifling.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
Whose gold is double with a careful hand,
His cares are double.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Gold is so heavy it settles down upon the lowest souls.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
When Gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Gold is the corpse of value.
NEAL STEPHENSON
Cryptonomicon
Society established gold and silver as a circulating medium and as a legal tender in order that exchanges of commodities might be facilitated; but society blundered in so doing; for, by this very act, it gave to a certain class of men the power of saying what exchanges shall, and what exchanges shall not, be facilitated by means of this very circulating medium. The monopolizers of othe precious metals have an undue power over the community: they can say whether money shall, or shall not, be permitted to exercise its legitimate functions.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Socialistic
He who wakes up early finds gold.
HUNGARIAN PROVERB
When savage nations are first visited by the civilized, they evince the greatest eagerness to obtain iron, as soon as they have come to know the uses of it, while the Christians who go amongst them, manifest a still greater desire for the possession of gold. To accomplish these mutual ends, the savages resort to cunning, pilfering, and bartering, and their more enlightened brethren to deception, violence, and fraud.
LORD ACTON
Acton; Or, the Circle of Life
All gold is fool's gold.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
No gold glitters like that which is our own.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
Because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Gold stimulates the heart, or so we're told.
He therefore had a special love of gold.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
Gold is the only power which receives universal homage; it has often been able to boast of having armies for its priesthood, and hecatombs of human victims for its sacrifices. What part of the globe's surface is not rapidly yielding up its lost stores of hidden treasures to the spirit of gain? It scorns the childish dream of the philosopher's stone, and aspires to turn the globe itself into gold.
J. HARRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Gold thou mayst safely touch; but if it stick
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Church-Porch
Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?...
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless th’ accursed,
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves,
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Timon of Athens