“Such a crises occurs only where the ever-lengthening chain of payments,and an artificial system of settling them, has been fullydeveloped. Whenever there is a general and extensive disturbanceof this mechanism, no matter what its cause, money becomessuddenly and immediately transformed from its merely ideal shapeof money of account into hard cash. Profane commodities can nolonger replace it. The use-value of commodities becomesvalueless, and their value vanishes in the presence of its ownindependent form. On the eve of the crisis, the bourgeois, withthe self-sufficiency that springs from intoxicating prosperity,declares money to be a vain imagination. Commodities alone aremoney. But now the cry is everywhere that money alone is acommodity! As the hart pants after fresh water, so pants his soulafter money, the only wealth.”

“The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things.”

“Money might not buy happiness, I reflected, but it was a useful commodity, nonetheless.”

“The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best; but is sometimes merely the product of a company, with plenty of money to spend on advertising.”

“So you think money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim you product by tears, or of looters, who can take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?”

“The value of being brave, working hard, saving money keeping order depends on what it's for.”