“It takes brains to make money, but any dam fool can inherit. P. S.: I never inherited any money.”
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 10.
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Elbert Hubbard 141
American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el … 1856–1915Related quotes

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Money
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

Source: Facing Reality (1970), p. 83
Context: I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin. … I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions.

“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

“I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?”
Willy
Death of a Salesman (1949)

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”

Dissenting in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 242-45 (1944)
Judicial opinions
Context: Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.
A citizen's presence in this locality, however, was made a crime only if his parents were of Japanese birth. Had Korematsu been one of four - the others being, say, a German alien enemy, an Italian alien enemy, and a citizen of American-born ancestors, convicted of treason, but on parole - only Korematsu's presence would have violated the order. The difference between their innocence and his crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock.
Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one's antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be visited upon him. But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign. If Congress in peace-time legislation should enact such a criminal law, I should suppose this Court would refuse to enforce it.