“A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.”
Bob Hope (1903–2003) American comedian, actor, singer and dancer
“[A banker is] a man who will lend you money if you can prove to him that you don't need it.”
Quoted by Leonard Lyons in his column https://secure.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/doc/151726578.html, 15 October 1944
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Do you have more details about the quote "[A banker is] a man who will lend you money if you can prove to him that you don't need it." by Joe E. Lewis?
Joe E. Lewis1
American singer and comedian 1902–1971Related quotes
Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet
"Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Context: Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,
And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,
Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
According to R. Ken Rasmussen in The Quotable Mark Twain (1998), this is most probably not Twain's.
Misattributed
Jesus (-7–30 BC) Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity
95
Gnostic Gospels, Gospel of Thomas (c. 2nd century AD manuscript)
Ralph Waldo Emerson English Traits
English Traits (1856), reprinted in The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 2 (Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1870), p. 206 ( full text at GoogleBooks http://books.google.com/books?id=21IRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA206)
“Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like.”
Walter Slezak (1902–1983) actor
Quoted as "Actor Walter Slezak's version of "keeping up with the Joneses"": in LOOK magazine, Vol. 21 number 14 (July 9, 1957) p. 10 http://books.google.com/books?id=-NERAQAAMAAJ&q=%22impress+people%22, in LOOK's permanent category of quotes "WHAT THEY ARE SAYING". <br class="br">Already in 1905 W.T. O'Connor had stated that advertising was "The gentle art of persuading the public to believe that they want something they don't need" in "Advertising Definitions", in Ad Sense, Vol. 19, No. 2 (August 1905), p. 121 http://books.google.com/books?id=zPRKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22W.+T.+O%27CONNOR%22, and in 1931 one finds Will Rogers being quoted with advertising "as something that makes you spend money you haven't got for things you don't want." But this complete statement with the finale "to impress people you don't like" seems to have originated with Slezak. However, Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/21/impress/ instead traces the quotation back to American humorist Robert Quillen, who wrote in 1928: "Americanism: Using money you haven't earned to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like."
John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929
Chapter VI https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Things Become More Serious, Section IV, p 115 <br class="br">The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)
