Quotes about dollar
page 6

James K. Morrow photo
Christopher Titus photo

“You think the pissed-off steelworker in Akron has trouble now? Wait until we have a financial collapse and they take 25 percent off the dollar. He'll be serving hot dogs in an American restaurant in China.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

As quoted in "Debriefing Mike Murphy" https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/debriefing-mike-murphy (18 March 2016), by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard
2010s

Thomas Sowell photo
George Will photo
Margaret Atwood photo

“Economic responsibility goes with military strength and an undue share in the costs of peacekeeping. Free riders are perhaps more noticeable in this area than in the economy, where a number of rules in trade, capital movements, payments and the like have been evolved and accepted as legitimate. Free ridership means that disproportionate costs must be borne by responsible nations, which must on occasion take care of the international or system interest at some expense in falling short of immediate goals. This is a departure from the hard­ nosed school of international relations in political science, represented especially perhaps by Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger, who believe that national interest and the balance of power constitute a stable system. Leadership, moreover, had overtones of the white man's burden, father knows best, the patronizing attitude of the lady of the manor with her Christmas baskets. The requirement, moreover, is for active, and not merely passive responsibility of the German—Japanese variety. With free riders, and the virtually certain emergency of thrusting newcomers, passivity is a recipe for disarray. The danger for world stability is the weakness of the dollar, the loss of dedication of the United States to the international system's interest, and the absence of candidates to fill the resultant vacua.”

Charles P. Kindleberger (1910–2003) American economic historian

"Economic Responsibility", The Second Fred Hirsch Memorial Lecture, Warwick University, 6 March 1980, republished in Comparative Political Economy: A Retrospective (2003)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Sarah Palin photo

“[Tax] dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good — things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

2014
Source: Referring to a $211,000 USDA study seeking ways to better control Bactrocera oleae, which is harmful to American agriculture. http://www.livescience.com/health/081104-bad-fruit-flies.html

Mitt Romney photo

“It's also a symbol of a serious conflict of interest. An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family – to campaign contributors. This building, this half a billion dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-05-31
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/mitt-romney-visits-solyndra-amid-attack-on-obama-jobs-record/
Mitt Romney Visits Solyndra Amid Attack on Obama Jobs Record
ABC News
About Solyndra
2012

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year. I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty. I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth. I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in America. I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire large river basins. I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire federal system from prevention to probation. I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in federal and state jury selection, by making it a serious federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the federal government by creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both required as well as rewarded. I will ask you to make it possible for members of the House of Representatives to work more effectively in the service of the nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a Congressman to four years, concurrent with that of the President. Because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do. We will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency. We will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it. We will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the Great Society. Last year alone the wealth that we produced increased $47 billion, and it will soar again this year to a total over $720 billion. Because our economic policies have produced rising revenues, if you approve every program that I recommend tonight, our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years. It will be only $1.8 billion next year. Total spending in the administrative budget will be $112.8 billion. Revenues next year will be $111 billion. On a cash basis—which is the way that you and I keep our family budget—the federal budget next year will actually show a surplus. That is to say, if we include all the money that your government will take in and all the money that your government will spend, your government next year will collect one-half billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967. I have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures. I have come here to recommend that you, the representatives of the richest nation on earth, you, the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe, you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Fred Dryer photo

“I'm convinced from my own investigation that meat is an inefficient means of getting protein. Besides, why kill a cow when so much is given to us naturally? … They're killers, those fast-food places where you can poison the whole family for less than five dollars.”

Fred Dryer (1946) Player of American football

"They Hunger for Success" https://www.si.com/vault/1977/02/28/560840/they-hunger-for-success, interview with Sports Illustrated (February 28, 1977).

Mukesh Ambani photo
Revilo P. Oliver photo
Cloris Leachman photo
Courtney Love photo

“Why did you pay twenty dollars to sit in the front row and tell me I suck? And you're a girl. That's stupid.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

At the Paradiso, Amsterdam; April 24, 1995
Stage banter

Stanley Knowles photo
Jordan Anderson photo
John Perkins photo
William Jennings Bryan photo

“Ask Bill [Gates] why the string in [MS-DOS] function 9 is terminated by a dollar sign. Ask him, because he can't answer. Only I know that.”

Gary Kildall (1942–1994) Computer scientist and entrepreneur

Quoted in James Wallace and Jim Erickson (1991-05-08), "Bill Gates: Of Mind and Money", Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Aron Ra photo
Klaus Kinski photo
Larry the Cable Guy photo

“I'll tell ya the one thing you don't wanna buy at the dollar store - toilet paper. (laughs) I might as well have just used the dollar.”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Tailgate Party (2009)

Peter D. Schiff photo

“One of the biggest attractions of the euro is that it is seen as the most likely candidate to replace the dollar as the reserve currency.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

Donald J. Trump photo

“We spent 5 trillion dollars in the Middle East and our country is going to hell. We gotta bring it back. We gotta knock the hell out of ISIS.”

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

2010s, 2016, January, Speech at (18 January 2016)

John Fante photo
Debito Arudou photo
Andrew Carnegie photo
Nelson Algren photo

“A man who won't demean himself for a dollar is a phoney to my way of thinking.”

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer

"Algren wrote in a letter in late middle age" (1960s), quoted by Richard Flanagan, 2005.
Nonfiction works

Ted Nugent photo
Ron Paul photo
Steve Jobs photo

“I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It's very character-building.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

As quoted in Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company (2004) by Owen W. Linzmayer
2000s
Variant: I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year… It's very character-building.

David Mitchell photo

“Well, I don't even want his million dollars. I don't want his million dollars. I mean, the reason I came on is because he kept you know, my web site, yeah, yeah, and said I would never come on and face him. But I don't care about his million dollars. I mean, I don't need his million.”

Sylvia Browne (1936–2013) American author

Referring to James Randi's offer of $1 million dollars to test her psychic ability.
September 3, 2001 Larry King Live, CNN interview http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/03/lkl.00.html

Harlan Ellison photo
Warren Buffett photo

“I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. … It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in Barbarians at the Gate : The Fall of RJR Nabisco (1989), by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

“If I had a dollar for every time I said that, I'd be making money in a very weird way.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Do You Believe in Gosh?

Eugene V. Debs photo

“They themselves do not cultivate the soil. Nor do they allow others to cultivate it. They keep it idle to enrich themselves, to pocket the millions of dollars of unearned increment.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)
Context: They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches.
And now among other things they are urging you to "cultivate" war gardens, while at the same time a government war report just issued shows that practically 52 percent of the arable, tillable soil is held out of use by the landlords, speculators and profiteers. They themselves do not cultivate the soil. Nor do they allow others to cultivate it. They keep it idle to enrich themselves, to pocket the millions of dollars of unearned increment.

Warren Buffett photo

“More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death. Measured by dollars, this commitment is large. In a comparative sense, though, many individuals give more to others every day.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

" My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf" at the The Giving Pledge (2010)
Context: More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death. Measured by dollars, this commitment is large. In a comparative sense, though, many individuals give more to others every day.
Millions of people who regularly contribute to churches, schools, and other organizations thereby relinquish the use of funds that would otherwise benefit their own families. The dollars these people drop into a collection plate or give to United Way mean forgone movies, dinners out, or other personal pleasures. In contrast, my family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge.
Moreover, this pledge does not leave me contributing the most precious asset, which is time. Many people, including — I’m proud to say — my three children, give extensively of their own time and talents to help others. Gifts of this kind often prove far more valuable than money.

Babe Ruth photo

“I am through—through with the pests and the good-time guys. Between them and a few crooks I have thrown away more than a quarter of a million dollars. I have been a Babe—and a Boob. I'm through.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted and paraphrased in "I Have Been a Babe and a Boob" by Joe Winkworth, in Collier's (October 31, 1925), p. 15
Context: "I am through—through with the pests and the good-time guys. Between them and a few crooks I have thrown away more than a quarter of a million dollars. I have been a Babe—and a Boob. I'm through." [Ruth] confesses he faces either oblivion or the hard task of complete reformation. [He] realizes that he must make good all over again. "I am going to do it," he said. "I was going to be the exception, the popular hero who could do as he pleased. But all those people were right. Babe and Boob—that was me all over. Now, though, I know that if I am to wind up sitting pretty on the world I've got to face the facts and admit I have been the sappiest of saps. All right, I admit it. I haven't any desire to kid myself."

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“When I saw that statement I will tell you what I did. I knew the man’s conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of a “materialistic demon.” I wrote him a letter and I said: “My Dear Sir: In order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, I hereby enclose the amount you paid to attend my lecture.””

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: This gentlemen hated to contribute a cent to the support of a “materialistic demon.” When I saw that statement I will tell you what I did. I knew the man’s conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of a “materialistic demon.” I wrote him a letter and I said: “My Dear Sir: In order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, I hereby enclose the amount you paid to attend my lecture.” I then gave him a little good advice. I advised him to be charitable, to be kind, and regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to one of my talks for an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that all men had the same right to think. This man denied having received the money, but it was traced to him through a blot on the envelope.

Tom Lehrer photo

“I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Intro to "Lobachevsky"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)
Context: I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

C. A. R. Hoare photo

“There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way — and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.”

C. A. R. Hoare (1934) British computer scientist

The Emperor's Old Clothes
Context: [About PL/I] At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way — and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

Nicholas Carr photo

“Hardly a dollar or a euro changes hands anymore without the aid of computer systems.”

Nicholas Carr (1959) American writer

Why IT Doesn't Matter Anymore http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3520.html, Harvard Business Review, June 9, 2003.
Context: Today, no one would dispute that information technology has become the backbone of commerce. It underpins the operations of individual companies, ties together far-flung supply chains, and, increasingly, links businesses to the customers they serve. Hardly a dollar or a euro changes hands anymore without the aid of computer systems.

John F. Kennedy photo

“Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, American University speech
Context: I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

H.L. Mencken photo

“It would surprise no impartial observer if the motto “In God we trust” were one day expunged from the coins of the republic by the Junkers at Washington, and the far more appropriate word, “verboten,” substituted. Nor would it astound any save the most romantic if, at the same time, the goddess of liberty were taken off the silver dollars to make room for a bas-relief of a policeman in a spiked helmet.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

The American Credo: A Contribution toward the Interpretation of the National Mind (1920)
1920s
Context: The American of today, in fact, probably enjoys less personal liberty than any other man of Christendom, and even his political liberty is fast succumbing to the new dogma that certain theories of government are virtuous and lawful, and others abhorrent and felonious. Laws limiting the radius of his free activity multiply year by year: It is now practically impossible for him to exhibit anything describable as genuine individuality, either in action or in thought, without running afoul of some harsh and unintelligible penalty. It would surprise no impartial observer if the motto “In God we trust” were one day expunged from the coins of the republic by the Junkers at Washington, and the far more appropriate word, “verboten,” substituted. Nor would it astound any save the most romantic if, at the same time, the goddess of liberty were taken off the silver dollars to make room for a bas-relief of a policeman in a spiked helmet. Moreover, this gradual (and, of late, rapidly progressive) decay of freedom goes almost without challenge; the American has grown so accustomed to the denial of his constitutional rights and to the minute regulation of his conduct by swarms of spies, letter-openers, informers and agents provocateurs that he no longer makes any serious protest.

Richard Wright photo
Nancy Peters photo

“Maybe a thousand dollars”

Nancy Peters (1936) American writer and publisher

Shawn Hubler, "At 50, City Lights illuminates the past", http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20030615/ai_n14549339 Oakland Tribune/Los Angeles Times on findarticles.com, 2003-06-15. : On City Lights' profits for the year.
2000s

Henry R. Towne photo

“The monogram of our national initials, which is the symbol for our monetary unit, the dollar, is almost as frequently conjoined to the figures of an engineer's calculations as are the symbols indicating feet, minutes, pounds, or gallons.”

Henry R. Towne (1844–1924) American engineer

Source: "The Engineer as an Economist," 1886, p. 428; Lead paragraph
Self cited in: Henry R. Towne in Foreword to the 1911 editions of: F.W. Taylor Shop management; a paper read before the American society of mechanical engineers New York. 1903/1911.
Context: The monogram of our national initials, which is the symbol for our monetary unit, the dollar, is almost as frequently conjoined to the figures of an engineer's calculations as are the symbols indicating feet, minutes, pounds, or gallons. The final issue of his work, in probably a majority of cases, resolves itself into a question of dollars and cents, of relative or absolute values. This statement, while true in regard to the work of all engineers, applies particularly to that of the mechanical engineer, for the reason that his functions, more frequently than in the case of others, include the executive duties of organizing and superintending the operations of industrial establishments, and of directing the labor of the artisans whose organized efforts yield the fruition of his work.

“Their eyes glaze, and their cigars go out, and behind the lenses of their horn-rimmed spectacles I see the dominating symbol of their inner life: it is a dollar sign.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Writing (1990).
Context: Once or twice I have tried to talk to film people about my ugly heroine. I explain to them the extraordinary psychological fascination of the medieval legend of the Loathly Damsel, whose splendour of spirit is confined within a hideous body, and she becomes beautiful only when she is understood and loved. I advise you not to talk to resolutely Hollywood minds about the Loathly Damsel. Their eyes glaze, and their cigars go out, and behind the lenses of their horn-rimmed spectacles I see the dominating symbol of their inner life: it is a dollar sign.

Noam Chomsky photo

“It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 http://www.madre.org/articles/chomsky-0801.html.
Quotes 2000s, 2001
Context: Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it's exactly what you're taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it's called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

Thomas Edison photo

“If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Commenting on Henry Ford's currency plan in ”Ford sees wealth in Muscle Shoals”, New York Times (6 December 1921), p. 6 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E11F63B5A1B7A93C4A91789D95F458285F9.
Context: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. … It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.

Henry R. Towne photo

“The dollar is the final term in almost every equation which arises in the practice of engineering in any or all of its branches, except qualifiedly as to military and naval engineering, where in some cases cost may be ignored.”

Henry R. Towne (1844–1924) American engineer

Self cited in: Henry R. Towne in Foreword to the 1911 editions of: F.W. Taylor Shop management; a paper read before the American society of mechanical engineers New York. 1903/1911.
Industrial Engineering, 1905
Context: The dollar is the final term in almost every equation which arises in the practice of engineering in any or all of its branches, except qualifiedly as to military and naval engineering, where in some cases cost may be ignored. In other words, the true function of the engineer is, or should be, not only to determine how physical problems may be solved, but also how they may be solved most economically. For example, a railroad may have to be carried over a gorge or arroyo. Obviously it does not need an engineer to point out that this may be done by filling the chasm with earth, but only a bridge engineer is competent to determine whether it is cheaper to do this or to bridge it, and to design the bridge which will safely and most cheaply serve, the cost of which should be compared with that of an earth fill. Therefore the engineer is, by the nature of his vocation an economist. His function is not only to design, but also so to design as to ensure the best economical result. He who designs an unsafe structure or an inoperative machine is a bad engineer; he who designs them so that they are safe and operative, but needlessly expensive, is a poor engineer, and, it may be remarked, usually earns poor pay; he who designs good work, which can be executed at a fair cost, is a sound and usually a successful engineer; he who does the best work at the lowest cost sooner or later stands at the top of his profession, and usually has the reward which this implies.

Sam Harris photo

“You could be an unprecedented genius, you could look like George Clooney, you could have a billion dollars and you could have the social skills of Oprah and you are going nowhere in politics in this country, unless you believe in that sort of god.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris in debate on ABC Nightline (23 March 2010) "Does God Have a Future?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_kAk2Naz-A&t=1m25s
2010s
Context: The God that our neighbors believe in is essentially an invisible person. He’s a creator deity, who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primates – lucky us. And he’s got galaxy upon galaxy to attend to, but he’s especially concerned with what we do, and he’s especially concerned with what we do while naked. He almost certainly disapproves of homosexuality. And he’s created this cosmos as a vast laboratory in which to test our powers of credulity, and the test is this: can you believe in this God on bad evidence, which is to say, on faith? And if you can, you will win an eternity of happiness after you die. And it's precisely this sort of god and this sort of scheme that you must believe in if you're going to have any kind of future in politics in this country, no matter what your gifts. You could be an unprecedented genius, you could look like George Clooney, you could have a billion dollars and you could have the social skills of Oprah and you are going nowhere in politics in this country, unless you believe in that sort of god.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Paul Glover photo

“Dollars control people. Community currencies connect people.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.paulglover.org/9510.html (HOUR Town, cover story), October 1995

Jean Chrétien photo

“They may think that they are very smart about everything because they made millions of dollars by digging a hole in the ground and finding oil, but the talent and luck needed to become rich are not the same talent and luck needed to succeed on Parliament Hill.”

Jean Chrétien (1934) 20th Prime Minister of Canada

Source: Straight From The Heart (1985), Chapter Four, The Politics Of Business, p. 91
Context: I learned early that business is business and politics is politics. The proof is how few important businessmen have made good politicians. They may think that they are very smart about everything because they made millions of dollars by digging a hole in the ground and finding oil, but the talent and luck needed to become rich are not the same talent and luck needed to succeed on Parliament Hill.

Jacques Ellul photo

“This is the very heart of modern religion, the religion of the established fact, the religion on which depend the lesser religions of the dollar, race, or the proletariat, which are only expressions of the great modern divinity, the Moloch of fact.”

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

Source: The Presence of the Kingdom (1948), p. 37
Context: People think that they have no right to judge a fact — all they have to do is to accept it. Thus from the moment that technics, the State, or production, are facts, we must worship them as facts, and we must try to adapt ourselves to them. This is the very heart of modern religion, the religion of the established fact, the religion on which depend the lesser religions of the dollar, race, or the proletariat, which are only expressions of the great modern divinity, the Moloch of fact.

“Millions of dollars have been expended to excavate and transport to museums the tools, weapons, and other artifacts of Indians—but scarcely a penny has been spent to save the living descendents of those who made them.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: Millions of dollars have been expended to excavate and transport to museums the tools, weapons, and other artifacts of Indians—but scarcely a penny has been spent to save the living descendents of those who made them. Modern man is prompt to prevent cruelty to animals, and sometimes even to humans, but no counterpart of the Humane Society or the Sierra Club exists to prevent cruelty to entire cultures.<!-- p. 275

Emma Goldman photo

“After all, it means thirteen dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

What is Patriotism? (1908)
Context: Our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in America as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in the Old World. Two very important facts, however, the gentleman forgets to consider. First, that conscription has created in Europe a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society. Thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the army, they will use every possible means to desert. Second, that it is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by European Powers far more than anything else. After all, the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. Is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments? The trade of militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable, but it is better than tramping the country in search of work, standing in the bread line, or sleeping in municipal lodging houses. After all, it means thirteen dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood. No wonder our military authorities complain of the "poor material" enlisting in the army and navy. This admission is a very encouraging sign. It proves that there is still enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the average American to risk starvation rather than don the uniform.

Paul Glover photo

“We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/2092/article/33/local.currency.in.each.other.we.trust (Whole Earth Catalog), Spring 1998
Context: “We printed our own money because we watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars. Ithaca's HOURS, by contrast, stay in our region to help us hire each other. While dollars make us increasingly dependent on transnational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community trading and expand commerce which is more accountable to our concerns for ecology and social justice.”.

Ha-Joon Chang photo

“Unlike what neo-liberals say, market and democracy clash at a fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote'. The market runs on the principle of 'one dollar, one vote'.”

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 8, Democracy and the free market, p. 172
Context: Unlike what neo-liberals say, market and democracy clash at a fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote'. The market runs on the principle of 'one dollar, one vote'. Naturally, the former gives equal weight to each person, regardless of the money she/he has. The latter give greater weight to richer people. Therefore, democratic decisions usually subvert the logic of market.

“It may be worthwhile to spend a few million dollars to determine the efficacy of program that would involve spending billions of dollars.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 2, Tools of Positive Analysis, p. 24-25

Théodore Guérin photo

“…the Americans must have the Almighty dollar.”

Théodore Guérin (1798–1856) Catholic saint and nun from France

Their cupidity renders them daring and indifferent to everything else. It is nothing to them to expose their lives and those of others in order to gain money. How materialistic these people are!
To the Right Reverend J. Bouvier, Bishop of Le Mans, Saint Mary's, 1849-07-08.

Bill Bailey photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Lucy Parsons photo

“Who can measure the worth of a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo or Beethoven in dollars and cents?”

Lucy Parsons (1853–1942) American communist anarchist labor organizer

The Principles of Anarchism

Harold Macmillan photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent…”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Tax the Rich That’s About As Radical as What Teddy Roosevelt Proposed, by John Nichols, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-progressive-estate-tax-teddy-roosevelt/ (12 February 2019)
2010s, 2019, February 2019

Bernie Sanders photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Thomas Sowell photo
John Conyers photo
Benjamin Creme photo

“The real evil, the fundamental cause of all the problems of the world today — the fact that two-thirds of the world live in absolute poverty, on less than a dollar a day, while others have not even that, and are dying in the millions — the root of all of that is our complacency.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

If we were not complacent we could not bear to live in a world in which these events were happening, these people were dying in the midst of plenty. We would not allow it to happen if we were not complacent. This is something which we need to remember... because this is the root of all the troubles in the world. It is a sign of our separateness. Complacency results from separation — the sense that we are separate and that by competition we become superior — and that superiority allows us to live what we call ‘well’. But we cannot live ‘well’ when two-thirds of the world are living and dying in absolute poverty. It is not possible to do so with impunity, and we do not. The result is crime. The result is catastrophe of one kind or another — governments which create wars for oil, for example. That is a catastrophe, and it is only possible because we are complacent, because we do not acknowledge the needs of millions of people who cannot take for granted what we take for granted: regular food, leisure, education and healthcare.
The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

Tulsi Gabbard photo

“Our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War & arms race, costing us trillions of our hard earned tax payer dollars & countless lives. This insanity must end.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter post https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard, (27 Jun 2019)
Twitter account, June 2019

Tulsi Gabbard photo

“As President and Commander-in-Chief, I will end the wasteful counterproductive regime-change wars, and reinvest those trillions of dollars in the needs of the American people.”

Tulsi Gabbard (1981) U.S. Representative from Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Twitter, https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1105909278446104576 (13 March 2019)
Twitter account, March 2019

Smedley D. Butler photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo
Samantha Bee photo

“As long as you want to keep playing whack-a-mole from hell, it is my solemn promise that I will keep picking up the metaphorical hammer to slam you back down and remind you that you have not yet done anything to earn our forgiveness. So take your millions of dollars and pay a therapist to care about how tough it’s been to get caught being an abuser because honestly, I don’t give a shit.”

Samantha Bee (1969) Canadian comedic actress and author

Full Frontal, May 9, 2018, as quoted in "Samantha Bee Checks in With #MeToo, This Time With Zero F***s Left to Give for These Men" https://www.themarysue.com/samantha-bee-schneiderman-eff-off/, by Vivian Kane, The Mary Sue, May 10th, 2018

Victor Villaseñor photo

“We were starving when we got to the Texas border! And we thought that once we got across all our troubles were over. But we were wrong! A new kind of war started for us of racism and prejudice. They treated us Mexicans worse than dogs! In Douglas, Arizona, I stole six dollars worth of copper ore from the Copper Queen Mining Company to feed my starving mother and sisters, and they put me in the penitentiary. I was only thirteen years old! They wouldn’t have done that to a gringo kid, but they did this to a Mexican kid to teach an example!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Tears came to his eyes. “In prison those monsters tried to rape me, but I fought back so hard that they cut my stomach open from rib to rib,” he yelled, tearing his shirt open and showing me the huge scar that ran across his whole abdomen, going from his upper right side to his lower left side. “My intestines came out, and they left me for dead, but the guards found me and took me to the hospital. After a week I awoke, and, at the end of that month, I escaped with two Yaqui who’d gotten twenty years for eating an Army mule. Their familias had been starving! And they’d stolen the mule to feed them! “YOU’VE GOT NO RAGE COMPARED TO THAT, PENDEJO! There aren’t enough bullets for me to kill all the racist no-good sons of bitches I’ve met in the United States! But—and this is a big but— anybody can go around killing people! Any damn group of kids can get together and kill! That takes no guts! What takes guts is to have that rage, here inside,” he said, pounding his chest, “and decide to do something good with that rage. My revenge against this racist two-faced country of the United States is that I got rich and became a Republican! So now you come back to the United States, and you do something worthwhile, AND YOU DO IT RIGHT NOW, PENDEJO!
Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Shaun Micallef photo
Jon Kyl photo

“His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”

Jon Kyl (1942) junior U.S. Senator from Arizona

Statement from Jon Kyl's office to CNN, regarding his 2011-04-08 statement in the Senate that abortion is "well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does"
Kyl Walks Back Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’
2011-04-08
ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/08/kyl-walks-back-claim-about-planned-parenthoo/
2011-04-15

Ilana Mercer photo

“If regular visits with prostitutes kept the political class from launching trillion-dollar war- and welfare programs, and financing Fanny, Freddy and the Fed—I would personally contribute to a prostitution fund for Washington whores. The prostitutes would be the patriots.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Uncle Sam turns tricks (& stiffs sex workers),” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=650 RT, May 11, 2012.
2010s, 2012

Rose Wilder Lane photo
John Muir photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!”

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

Twitter 7:30 AM https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069584730880974849?fbclid · (3 Dec 2018)
2010s, 2018, December