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DISCLAIMER: Nothing in the following article is intended as a criticism of the current administration, nor of the government generally. Nor is its tone or content meant to be unpatriotic. It is simply historical reality that 'those with eyes to see and ears to hear' (paraphrasing Mark 8:18) may wish to take under consideration. It is as true with paper money as with any other commodity:  Caveat Emptor!

Famous Quotes About Money

And not just any kind of money, no siree.

We're talkin' the kind that grows on trees... or at least, the kind that's made from trees.

We're talkin' cellulose, rag linen, ink and pictures of assorted, deceased notables.

We're Talkin' Paper Money

The following quotes are from an elite assortment of famous past U.S. presidents, world class statesmen and leading intellectuals (obviously a lazy, disaffected bunch of know-nothings, every one of them, so please bear that in mind as you read).

What's worse, what they each have to say is not only so shocking but so similar to what all the others are saying -- even though separated by lifetimes, cultures and continents -- it can only mean that there's been an ongoing, international conspiracy spanning centuries whose sole purpose is to disparage the world's financial system!

Now, ordinarily we wouldn't pass this type of stuff on, but it's just so wildly contrarian, wacky and plain 'out of the box' that we simply had to bring it to you anyway, Dear Reader, if for no other reason than to provide you with a good laugh or two.

Certainly there is no value here, and it would do no bright, young home schooler any good whatsoever to pick up on these themes and conduct their own research, but we provided the hyperlinks just in case.

Without further ado, we give you...

Paper Money

“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value, zero.” -- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." -- Daniel Webster

"Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." -- George Washington, in a letter to J. Bowen, Rhode Island, January 9, 1787

"The constitution, therefore, considers the emission of bills of credit [printing of paper money], and the enactment of tender laws, as distinct operations ... Both are forbidden." -- U.S. Supreme Court, Craig v. Missouri, 4 Peters 410
 

"Madison, agreeing with the journal of the [constitutional] convention, records that the grant of power to emit bills of credit [issue paper money] was refused by a majority of more than four to one. The evidence is perfect; no power to emit paper money was granted to the legislature of the United States." -- George Bancroft in A Plea for the Constitution (1886)

"No state shall emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, coin money ..." -- Article One, Section Ten, United States Constitution
 

"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." -- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." -- President James A. Garfield

"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out." -- President Andrew Jackson to a delegation of bankers discussing the Bank Renewal Bill, 1832

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- Abraham Lincoln in a letter from to Col. William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt 

"The decrease in purchasing power incurred by holders of money due to inflation imparts gains to the issuers of money ...". -- St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Review, Nov. 1975, p.22

"Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing." -- Ralph M. Hawtrey, former Secretary of Treasury, England

"Without the confidence factor, many believe a paper money system is liable to collapse eventually." -- Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in Gold, p. 10

“We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.” -- Daniel Webster, speech in the Senate, 1833

“I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” -- Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816

"Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU." -- Federal Reserve Bank of New York in I Bet You Thought, p.19

"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England

"If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer." -- John Maynard Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 240 

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency ... Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose." -- John Maynard Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff

"Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people." -- Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of Exchequer, England

"A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interest, combined in one mass; and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks." -- John C. Calhoun, Speech May 27, 1836

"The Federal Reserve Act lets us print all we'll need. And it won't frighten the people. It won't look like stage money. It'll be money that looks like real money." -- Treasury Secretary Woodin, March 7, 1933 quoted in Closed for the Holiday: The Bank Holiday of 1933, p20 - Federal Reserve Bank of Boston 

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” -- John Kenneth Galbraith in Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, 1975, p15

“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.” -- John Kenneth Galbraith in Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went. 1975, p29 

“The legal tender quality [of money] is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.” -- Chief Justice Salmon Chase, formerly Secretary of Treasury in President Lincoln’s administration, in dissent of Knox vs. Lee (The Legal Tender Cases, 1871)

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe." -- Abraham Lincoln

"... back in 1927 and 1928, when the world was a tornado of prosperity of the paper persuasion ... I said that this thing had happened before, many times; and invariably it had also happened that the balloon was pricked, and deflation followed; that the inevitable penalty for a boom was a crash; that whatever political party happened to be in power when the smash arrived, would be the object of loathing and contempt; and that for several years the disillusioned populace would be so busy pitying themselves that they would become the victims of every impostor and imposture that effrontery and ignorance could contrive ..." -- Freeman Tilden in his 1935 book A World in Debt.

"With the monetary system we have now, the careful saving of a lifetime can be wiped out in an eyeblink." -- Larry Parks, Executive Director, FAME

"I now deny [the Federal Government's] power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender." -- Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:65

And finally, we could not leave you without these immortal words about industry, entrepreneurialism and a strong work ethic.

"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." -- ancient Chinese proverb

"If you give a person a fish, they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime." -- Dan Quayle, former U.S. Vice-President