Quotes about coin (275 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“In accordance with my conception of life, I have chosen not to bring children into the world. A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung out into the cosmic brutality without hesitation.”

Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author

Source: The Last Messiah (1933), To Be a Human Being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4m6vvaY-Wo&t=1110s (1989–90)

Life , Children , World

“Let every man abide in the art or employment wherein he was called. And for their labor they may receive all necessary things, except money. … Let none of the brothers, wherever he may be or whithersoever he may go, carry or receive money or coin in any manner, or cause it to be received, either for clothing, or for books, or as the price of any labor, or indeed for any reason, except on account of the manifest necessity of the sick brothers. For we ought not to have more use and esteem of money and coin than of stones. And the devil seeks to blind those who desire or value it more than stones. Let us therefore take care lest after having left all things we lose the kingdom of heaven for such a trifle. And if we should chance to find money in any place, let us no more regard it than the dust we tread under our feet.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

First Rule of the Friars Minor

Money , Books , Art , Chance

“As the phrase that I had coined goes: If I cannot join them, I will rise above them; and if I cannot rise above them, I will destroy them.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)
Context: A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

“How do you get all those coins?" asked Mort.
IN PAIRS.”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

“I have an idea that the phrase “weaker sex” was coined by some woman to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Sex , Idea

“Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Sun

“I have had long association with Thengadiji. I was present in the Bhopal meeting in which the decision to form the BMS was taken. During the discussion to decide the name of the new organisation, Thengadiji had suggested the name Shramjivi Sangathan. The name Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh was coined keeping in view the fact that the name should be simple and meaningful. I feel trade unionism is facing a crisis today. We have before us two paths, one of these is on the way out. There is a need to find out the third one. Workers' interests should be protected but at the same time the nation's interest too must be borne in mind. The workers' movement is in a crisis and how to balance things in a changing scenario should be considered using the third way out, which was what Thengadi had been attempting. Whatever Thengadiji has written should be read by all of us. I feel it will guide us for long.”

Dattopant Thengadi (1920–2004) Indian politician

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, The Organiser, 31 October 2004 issue. p. 13, Article Named- 'His writings will guide us' https://web.archive.org/web/20120331123458/http://organiser.org/archives/historic/dynamic/modulesa3a9.html?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=48&page=13

Way , Feeling , Decision , Change

“If Congress alters the law and directs me to replace on the coins the sentence in question the direction will be immediately put into effect; but I very earnestly trust that the religious sentiment of the country, the sprit of reverence in this country, will prevent any such action being taken.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

Law , Question , Country

“When the question of the new coinage came up we looked into the law and found there was no warrant therein for putting 'In God We Trust' on the coins. As the custom, although without legal warrant, had grown up, however, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription had I had approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did not direct that it should again be put on. Of course the matter of the law is absolutely in the hands of Congress, and any direction of Congress in the matter will be immediately obeyed. At present, as I have said, there is no warrant in law for the inscription.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

God , Law , Question

“"In God We Trust." Now then, after that legend had remained there forty years or so, unchallenged and doing no harm to anybody, the President suddenly "threw a fit" the other day, as the popular expression goes, and ordered that remark to be removed from our coinage.
Mr. Carnegie granted that the matter was not of consequence, that a coin had just exactly the same value without the legend as with it, and he said he had no fault to find with Mr. Roosevelt's action but only with his expressed reasons for the act. The President had ordered the suppression of that motto because a coin carried the name of God into improper places, and this was a profanation of the Holy Name. Carnegie said the name of God is used to being carried into improper places everywhere and all the time, and that he thought the President's reasoning rather weak and poor.
I thought the same, and said, "But that is just like the President. If you will notice, he is very much in the habit of furnishing a poor reason for his acts while there is an excellent reason staring him in the face, which he overlooks. There was a good reason for removing that motto; there was, indeed, an unassailably good reason — in the fact that the motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar–mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.
Take an instance: the removal of the motto fetched out a clamor from the pulpit; little groups and small conventions of clergymen gathered themselves together all over the country, and one of these little groups, consisting of twenty-two ministers, put up a prodigious assertion unbacked by any quoted statistics and passed it unanimously in the form of a resolution: the assertion, to wit, that this is a Christian country. Why, Carnegie, so is hell. Those clergymen know that, inasmuch as "Strait is the way and narrow is the gate, and few — few — are they that enter in thereat" has had the natural effect of making hell the only really prominent Christian community in any of the worlds; but we don't brag of this and certainly it is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Statements (c. December 1907), in Mark Twain In Eruption : Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men And Events (1940) edited by Bernard Augustine De Voto

God , Lie , World , Disease

“Upon Christmas-day, the people of Rome, who had hitherto elected their Bishop, and reckoned that they and their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate and people of Rome, voted Charles their Emperor, and subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old Roman Empire and their Senate were subjected to the old Roman Emperors. The Pope [Leo III] crowned him, and anointed him with holy oil, and worshiped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors… The Emperor, on the other hand, took the following oath to the Pope: In nomine Christi spondeo atque polliceor, Ego Carolus Imperator coram Deo & beato Petro Apostolo, me protectorem ac defensorem fore hujus sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ in omnibus utilitatibus, quatenùs divino fultus fuero adjutorio, prout sciero poteroque. The Emperor was also made Consul of Rome, and his son Pipin crowned King of Italy: and henceforward the Emperor styled himself: Carolus serenissimus, Augustus, à Deo coronatus, magnus, pacificus, Romæ gubernans imperium [Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire], or Imperator Romanorum [Emperor of the Romans]; and was prayed for in the Churches of Rome. His image was henceforward put upon the coins of Rome: while the enemies of the Pope, to the number of three hundred Romans and two or three of the Clergy, were sentenced to death. The three hundred Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran fields: but the Clergymen at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned, and banished into France. And thus the title of Roman Emperor, which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors, was by this act transferred in the West to the Kings of France.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 7: Of the Eleventh Horn of Daniel's Fourth Beast
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Death , God , People , Peace

“It was a very spasmodic courtship, conducted mainly at long distance with a great clanking of coins in dozens of phone booths.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

On her romance with John F. Kennedy quoted inThe Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987) by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

“Theirs, too, is the word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.”

Virginia Woolf The Common Reader

"Notes on an Elizabethan Play"
The Common Reader (1925)

Sea

“For example, throughout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the free [silver] coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Everyone must remember the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like 'In God we trust for the other eight cents'; 'In God we trust for the short weight'; 'In god we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay'; and so forth and so forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

God , Question

“(Coining phrase "null hypothesis") In relation to any experiment we may speak of this hypothesis as the “null hypothesis,” and it should be noted that the null hypothesis is never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation. Every experiment may be said to exist only in order to give the facts a chance of disproving the null hypothesis.”

Ronald Fisher book The Design of Experiments

The Design of Experiments, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1935, p. 18
1930s

Chance

“In one of the temptations Satan offers to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, that is, the kingdoms and the related political power. …
Jesus refuses to answer the question about the tax. His “render unto Caesar” does not imply that there are two kingdoms, but that everything belongs to God. If Caesar undertakes to manufacture certain things like pieces of money, we should give them back to him; such things are of no interest or importance.
Jesus pays the (political) temple tax with two coins taken from the mouth of a fish. This absurd miracle expresses simple derision and shows once again that such matters are of no importance. Jesus similarly refuses to arbitrate between two men who are contesting an inheritance. He has not come to deal with legal problems.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 114

Men , Money , God , World

“Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 3, Section 2(c), pg. 145.
(Buch I) (1867)

Money

“English does not contain a suitable word for 'system of problems.' Therefore, I have had to coin one. I choose to call such a system a mess”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 21.

Problem

“This is Nietzsche’s twofold struggle: against those who remove values from criticism, contenting themselves with producing inventories of existing values or with criticizing things in the name of established values (the “philosophical labourers”, Kant and Schopenhauer, BGE 211); but also against those who criticise or respect values by deriving them from simple facts, from so-called “objective facts” (the utilitarians, the “scholars”, BGE Part 6). In both cases philosophy moves in the indifferent element of the valuable in itself or the valuable for all. Nietzsche attacks both the “high” idea of foundation which leaves values indifferent to their origin and the idea of simple causal derivation or smooth beginning which suggests an indifferent origin for values. Nietzsche substitutes the pathos of difference or distance (the differential element) for both the Kantian principle of universality and the principle of resemblance dear to the utilitarians. “It was from the height of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for them; what did utility matter?””

Gilles Deleuze book Nietzsche and Philosophy

GM I 2 p. 26
Source: Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), p. 2

Idea , Universe , Parting , Indifference

“Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case. Rigorous formulation demands unequivocal comprehension, conceptual effort, to which people are deliberately disencouraged, and imposes on them in advance of any content a suspension of all received opinions, and thus an isolation, that they violently resist. Only what they do not need first to understand, they consider understandable; only the word coined by commerce, and really alienated, touches them as familiar.”

Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia

Der vage Ausdruck erlaubt dem, der ihn vernimmt, das ungefähr sich vorzustellen, was ihm genehm ist und was er ohnehin meint. Der strenge erzwingt Eindeutigkeit der Auffassung, die Anstrengung des Begriffs, deren die Menschen bewußt entwöhnt werden, und mutet ihnen vor allem Inhalt Suspension der gängigen Urteile, damit ein sich Absondern zu, dem sie heftig widerstreben. Nur, was sie nicht erst zu verstehen brauchen, gilt ihnen für verständlich; nur das in Wahrheit Entfremdete, das vom Kommerz geprägte Wort berührt sie als vertraut.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 64
Minima Moralia (1951)

People , Imagination , Understanding , Thinking

“What's funny about the name "F**kface Von Clownstick" -- it was not coined by Jon Leibowitz-- he stole it from some moron on twitter.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2013

“(Coining the phrase ‘test of significance’): Critical tests of this kind may be called tests of significance, and when such tests are available we may discover whether a second sample is or is not significantly different from the first.”

Ronald Fisher book Statistical Methods for Research Workers

Statistical Methods for Research Workers, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1925, p. 43.
1910s–1920s

“There is, then, in this analysis of variance no indication of any other than innate and heritable factors at work. (Coining of the phrase ‘analysis of variance’.)”

Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist

The causes of human variability. Eugenics Review 10, 213-220, 1918.
1910s–1920s

“As regards to its use on the coinage we have actual experience by which to go. In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently of this motto on the coins or show any sign of having appealed to any high emotion in him. But I have literally hundreds of times heard it used as an occasion of, and incitement to, the sneering ridicule which it is above all things undesirable that so beautiful and exalted a phrase should excite.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

Life , Beauty , Time

“The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin, for which all things ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. …in the true exchange, there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Wisdom , Pain , Pleasure , Fear

“A word in conclusion about the relations between the whites and blacks. What must be the general character of the intercourse between them? Am I to treat the black man as my equal or my inferior? I must show him that I can respect the dignity of human personality in every one, and this attitude in me he must be able to see for himself; but the essential thing is that there shall be a real feeling of brotherliness. How far this is to find complete expression in the sayings and doings of daily life must be settled by circumstances. The negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: "I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother."”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Ch. VII, Social Problems in the Forest, p. 130 https://archive.org/stream/ontheedgeofthepr007259mbp#page/n163/mode/2up (1924 translation by Ch. Th. Campion); Schweitzer later repudiated such statements, saying "The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed.", as quoted in [Forrow, Lachlan, Foreword, Russell, C.E.B., African Notebook, Syracuse University Press, Albert Schweitzer library, 2002, 978-0-8156-0743-4, http://books.google.com/books?id=qa-TVXEkY3sC&pg=PR13, 23 June 2017, xiii]
Variant:
The African is my brother — but he is my younger brother by several centuries.
As quoted in The Observer (23 October 1955)
On the Edge of the Primeval Forest (1922)

Life , Children , Feeling , Nature

“Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)
Context: The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet-whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom.

Freedom

“My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does not good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)
Context: My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does not good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends to cheapen it, and, above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is free from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis - in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to be eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.

Beauty , Feeling , Question

“It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis - in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to be eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)
Context: My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does not good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit. Any use which tends to cheapen it, and, above all, any use which tends to secure its being treated in a spirit of levity, is free from every standpoint profoundly to be regretted. It is a motto which it is indeed well to have inscribed on our great national monuments, in our temples of justice, in our legislative halls, and in buildings such as those at West Point and Annapolis - in short, wherever it will tend to arouse and inspire a lofty emotion in those who look thereon. But it seems to be eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements.

Justice

“The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin, even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they're manifestations of the same thing...They spring from the same source. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt as humans to build an understanding of the universe, the world around us. It's our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.”

Mae Jemison (1956) American doctor and NASA astronaut

2002 TED talk by Mae Jemison https://www.ted.com/talks/mae_jemison_on_teaching_arts_and_sciences_together/transcript?language=en, TED talk "Teach arts and sciences together," February, 2002

Understanding , Spring , Art , Universe

“It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the constitutional power “to coin money and regulate the value thereof.””

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Congress have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution. But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional.
Often paraphrased as: If Congress has the right under the constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.
1830s
Source: Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp (10 July 1832)

Money

“Those swords are mine! Touch them and I’ll use ‘em to slice off your nut sack! For a coin purse!”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"
Allie considered this. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads."
"Or tails," suggested Allie.
"What are youabout?" said Lief.
"Life and death.”

Neal Shusterman book Everlost

Source: Everlost

Life , Death , Way

“Our standard rate. A doubloon a day."
It was generous. More than generous--some families would put him up for a week for a single coin.
"Half a doubloon a day," she said.
"No, you see, the idea behind bargaining is that you ask for a larger amount.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

Family , Idea

“The plot is so tired that even this reviewer, who in infancy was let drop by a nurse with the result that she has ever since been mystified by amateur coin tricks, was able to guess the identity of the murderer from the middle of the book.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Books

“Sometimes good and evil aren't so much opposites as two sides of a coin. You toss it one way and it looks good, another way and it's evil, sometimes it just depends on which end of the gun you're on.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Way , Evil , Dependency

“Money doesn't spend in hell, Wilkes. The devil deals in a different coin.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Money , Hell

“Owen meany who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water… remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain untouchable.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

Truth , Water

“What a pair they were - a Mistborn who felt guilty wasting coins to jump and a nobleman who thought balls were too expensive.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.”

Anthony Horowitz book The House of Silk

Source: The House of Silk

Childhood

“Good and evil are merely opposite sides of a coin. Get tossed in the air enough, it's easy to come down on the wrong side.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Evil

“Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't know they are connected.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Faith , Learning , Science

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Variant: Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.

Life , People , Time

“If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.”

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven

Birgitte Silverbow
Variant: If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.
Source: The Fires of Heaven (15 October 1993)

Smile

“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi stimul ac nummos contemplar in arca.
(The public hiss at me, but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strong-box.)”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Strong , Housing , Box

“For him, life was a coin that had disaster on one side and waiting for disaster on the other”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Enshrined

Life , Waiting

“Quotable quotes are coins rubbed smooth by circulation.”

Louis Menand (1952) writer, Pulitzer Prize for History winner

Quotes

“This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before…The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit.”

Ayn Rand book Anthem

Source: Anthem (1937)

“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Declaration at his 85th birthday party (6 January 1963), as quoted in The Best of Ralph McGill : Selected Columns (1980) by Ralph McGill, edited by Michael Strickland, Harry Davis, and Jeff Strickland, p. 82
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
As quoted without source in The School Musician Director and Teacher Vol. 43 (1971) by the American School Band Directors' Association

Life , Time

“Our life is one, big proverbial coin toss.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Life

“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

“Words are like coin—it pays to hoard."
"Until you die on a bed of gold," Paran said.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon

“If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal.
But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

World

“This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Problem

“Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Betrayal , Perfection

“A writer once said that it is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love. What nonsense! The person who wrote that clearly knew only one side of the coin.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Love , Knowledge , Change , Time

“A man will find a single coin in the mud and talk about it for days, but when his inheritance comes and is accounted one percent less than he expected, then he will declare himself cheated.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Cheating

“The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: 'I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.”

Mary Roach book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Source: Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Home

“Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire. Desire is rapture, not exchange.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

“That pledge says "under God". I will not take "God" out of the name of our platform. I will not take "God" off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart. We're a nation bestowed by God.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012

God , Heart

“Everything passes.–
Only robust art is eternal.
The bust outlives the city.
And the simple coin
Unearthed by a peasant
Reveals the image of an emperor.”

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) French writer

Tout passe.
L'art robuste
Seul a l'éternité,
Le buste
Survit à la cité.
Et la médaille austère
Que trouve un laboureur
Sous terre
Révèle un empereur.
All passes, art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The bust outlasts the throne, —
The coin, Tiberius.
"L'Art", line 41, in Émaux et Camées (1852; Genève: Librairie Droz, 1947) pp. 131-2; Dean de la Motte and Jeannene M. Przyblyski (eds.) Making the News (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999) p. 144; Henry Austin Dobson "Ars Victrix", line 29, in The Complete Poetical Works of Austin Dobson (Whitefish, Montana: Kessenger, 2005) p. 142.

Art

“.. the point of a randomizing device like a coin flip, [is] to make the result uncontrollable by making it sensitive to so many variables that no feasible, finite list of conditions can be singled out as the cause.”

Daniel Dennett book Freedom Evolves

Freedom Evolves (2003)

“Good Reader, I suspect I may have written some Things twice; if not the same in Words, yet in Sense, which I desire you to pass by favourably; forasmuch as you may well think, it was as difficult and dull a Thing for me, in so great a Number of independent Sentences, to find out the Repetitions, as it would be in a vast Heap of different Coins and Medals, confusedly thrown together, to pick out here and there one that bore the same and like Inscription, with some other among them. Besides the Pains, such a Search would cost me more Time, than I can afford it; for my Glass of Life running now low, I must not suffer one Sand to fall in waste, nor spend one Minute in picking of Straws. And moreover, my aged Eyes being grown weak and dim, I fear they will become quite dark, by much perusing and poring; or at least so far, so as to render me unable to perfect several Papers now lying by me, which I would willingly make a Present of to you.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Excerpt from Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II, To the Reader (Prefatory Remarks).
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Life , Pain , Age , Fear

“In Hind there is a Malik (king) who is called Al-juzar (Gujar). Such is awdl (justice) in his kingdom, if the gold is dropped in the way, there is no danger of its being picked up and stolen away by any body. His kingdom is very vast. Arab traders go to him, he makes ahsan (favour) to them, purchases merchandise from them; the purchase and sale are carried in gold coin called tatri, When the Arabs request him to provide a body guard, he says, there is no thief in my kingdom. If there is any incident or loss to your goods, merchandise and money I stand surety. Come to me, I will pay the compensation.”

Mihira Bhoja I (836–885) Ruler of the Gurjara Pratihara dynasty

According to the Arab invaders who was Bhoja's enemy;[Kitsbul Alaq Al-Nafisa Part 4, Ibne Rustah]
About

Money , Justice , Way , Loss

“If you gave me just a coin for every time we say goodbye
Well I'd be rich beyond my dreams, I'm sorry for my weary life
I know I'm not perfect but I can smile
and I hope that you see this heart behind my tired eyes.”

Dido (1971) English singer-songwriter

I'm No Angel
Song lyrics, No Angel (1999)

Life , Smile , Dreams , Hope

“In the long run wives are to be paid in a peculiar coin – consideration of their feelings. And it usually turns out this is an enormous, unthinkable inflation few men will remit, or if they will, only with a sense of being overcharged.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

Seduction and Betrayal

Men , Feeling , Sense

“Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they represent.”

Evelyn Underhill book Practical Mysticism

Source: Practical Mysticism (1914), Chapter I, What Is Mysticism?, p. 26-27

World , Parting

“Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well.
And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Help

“The fact that the mean recurrence time is infinite implies that the chance fluctuations in an individual prolonged coin-tossing game are far removed from the familiar pattern governed by the normal distribution.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter XIII, Recurrent Events. Renewal Theory. p. 314.

Game , Chance , Time

“The Third Reich coined only a very small number of the words in its language, perhaps - indeed probably - none at all... But it changes the value of words and the frequency of their occurrence, it makes common property out of what was previously the preserve of an individual or a tiny group, it commandeers for the party that which was previously common property and in the process steeps words and groups of words and sentence structures with its poison.”

Victor Klemperer book LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii

Source: LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii (The Language of the Third Reich) (1947), p. 16.

Change

“I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:61
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“The flip side of the coin was that even good programmers and language designers tended to do terrible extensions when they were in the heat of programming, because design is something that is best done slowly and carefully.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

ACM Queue A Conversation with Alan Kay Vol. 2, No. 9 - Dec/Jan 2004-2005 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523
2000s, A Conversation with Alan Kay, 2004–05

“The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the low-hanging overcast, surrounded by a fairy-ring of moisture.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

Sun

“On 11 October 1908, having worked for six years at my international magazine Poesia, in an attempt to free the Italian lyrical genius that was under sentence of death from its traditional and commercial fetters, I suddenly felt that articles, poetry and controversies were no longer enough. It was absolutely crucial to switch methods, get out into the streets, lay siege to theaters, and introduce the fisticuffs into the artistic struggle... My Italian blood raced faster when my lips coined out loud the word FUTURISM.
It was the new formula of Action-Art and a code of mental health. It was a youthful and innovative banner, anti-traditional, optimistic, heroic and dynamic, that had to be hoisted over the ruins of all attachment to the past.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

quote from 'Guerra sola igiene del mundo', in Edizione Futuriste di Poesia', Milan 1915; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 21
1910's

Death , Health , Youth , Art