Four Hilarious Quotes About Money

When Pink Floyd said, “Money, it’s a gas,” they were in good company.  Writers, philosophers, comedians and commentators have been coming up with hilarious witty quotes about money for centuries.  Whether you have a little bit or a lot, you’re sure to love what some of the world’s wisest people have to say about that often elusive necessity, money.

“Always borrow money from a pessimist.  He won’t expect it back.” – Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was a purveyor of the farcical, putting together shows such as The Importance of Being Earnest that were heralded for their humor then and now.  Oscar provides some good advice about money here, letting us know who to choose when we need to grab a quick $20 off one of our buddies.  Surely an optimist would do just as good a job, as they would be more likely to just sit, hope and be sure that you’re going to pay them back some day.

“Haha, I’m laughing”.  Funny face by Ani-Bee, on Flickr.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

“A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.  A successful woman is one who can find such a man.” – Lana Turner

Lana Turner was often cast as the ingénue — the endearingly innocent and wholesome type.  When she wasn’t working as a scream queen on films like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or a femme fatale in The Postman Always Rings Twice, she was busy being married seven times, sometimes to socialites, sometimes to millionaires.  Always joking about her personal life, Lana was also recorded as saying, “My goal was to have one husband and seven children, but it turned out to be the other way around.”

“Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.” – Anonymous

It’s drummed into us from a young age that money can’t buy you happiness, a statement that can be quite hard to stomach when you’re watching people whiz by in fancy cars off to their holiday homes.  This update of the famous quote puts things into perspective a little better.  Money can’t buy you happiness, but at least you’ll be comfortable in your misery.

“A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.” – Bob Hope

Bob Hope hails from a time where money was a bit more plentiful in America.  He survived the Great Depression to see the golden days of American economic growth, but wasn’t around to see the economic climate change in 2008.  With so many people scrambling to banks for money, or scrambling to banks to ask for more time to pay money back as the recession hit, Bob raises a valid point: If you can show the bank that you don’t need it, perhaps they’ll give it to you.  Money and our relationship with it differs from person to person, and often has a lot to do with our access to it, how much of it we have now and how much we have come to expect growing up.  Whatever your relationship to cold hard cash is, at least you can read these quotes and be amused by it.