Shilling Quotes

There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is the labor of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from. (Bernard Mandeville)

The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

James Madison

The idea of defending, as integral parts of our Empire, countries 10,000 miles off, like Australia, which neither pay a shilling to our revenue...nor afford us any exclusive trade...is about as quixotic a specimen of national folly as was ever exhibited.

Richard Cobden

In London, before I set out, I had paid one shilling; another was now demanded, so that upon the whole, from London to Richmond, the passage in the stage costs just two shillings.

Karl Philipp Moritz

Ten years ago the incoming Conservative Government found the national finances in good order. .... What do we find to-day? Expenditure and indebtedness have been piled up, the income-tax stands at a shilling, war taxes are continued in peace time, the national credit is impaired, and a heavy depreciation has taken place in securities of every description. You only have to look around to see the result. Industry is burdened, enterprise is restricted, workmen are thrown out of employment, and the poorer classes are straitened still further in their circumstances.

Henry Campbell-Bannerman

The man who won the argument, however, was John Locke, the Liberal philosopher, at that time acting as advisor to Sir Isaac Newton, then Warden of the Mint. Locke insisted that one can no more make a small piece of silver worth more by relabeling it a "shilling" than one can make a short man taller by declaring there are now fifteen inches in a foot.

David Graeber

We are having to make some heavy reductions in expenditure. ... They amount to about £250m. This is a very large sum. ... There has been some excessive and unnecessary resort to doctors for prescriptions. This must be checked. A charge, not exceeding one shilling, for each prescription will now be imposed. Arrangements will be made to relieve old age pensioners of this charge.

Clement Attlee

So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient woman's shawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lantern-light, at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of God's allotment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid.

Thomas Hardy

In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. The poor swearing soldier, hired to be shot, has his "honor of a soldier," different from drill-regulations and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's Heaven as a god-made Man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease.

Thomas Carlyle

Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will.

Edward Lear

It is a remarkable thing with reference to men who are distressed for money... they never seem at a loss for small sums, or deny themselves those luxuries which small sums purchase. Cabs, dinners, wine, theatres, and new gloves are always at the command of men who are drowned in pecuniary embarrassments, whereas those who don't owe a shilling are so frequently obliged to go without them! (Anthony Trollope)

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

When you've shouted "Rule Brittania": when you've sung "God Save the Queen," When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in khaki headed South?

Rudyard Kipling

Now observe: on the 36th day, after having begun to pray, on Dec. 10, 1845, I received 1000l. towards the building of the Orphan-House. This is the largest donation that I had received up to that time for the Scriptural Knowledge Institution; but when I received it I was as calm, as quiet, as if I had only received one shilling. For my heart was looking out for answers. Day by day I was expecting to receive answers to my prayers. Therefore, having faith concerning the matter, this donation did not in the least surprise me. Yea, if Five Thousand Pounds, or Ten Thousand Pounds, had been given to me, instead of One Thousand Pounds, it would not have surprised me.

George Müller

With one hand he put A penny in the urn of poverty, And with the other took a shilling out.

Robert Pollok

As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle.

John Ridley

A will of his own in a young man without a shilling is a superfluity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A shilling life will give you all the facts.

W. H. Auden

Go into the street and give one man a lecture on morality and another a shilling, and see which one will respect you most.

Samuel Johnson

He shivered. His coat was thin, and it was obvious he would not get his kiss, which he found puzzling. The manly heroes of the penny dreadfuls and shilling novels never had these problems getting kissed.

Neil Gaiman

The redcoats were doing what they did best, what they were paid a shilling a day less stoppages to do: they were killing. (Bernard Cornwell)

Then giving young Albert a shilling, He said "Pop off back to the Zoo. 'Ere's your stick with the 'orses's 'ead 'andle, Go and see what the Tigers can do!"

Marriott Edgar

None are so easily taken in as the "knowing ones." The knowing one is generally an egregious ninny. The man who loses his last shilling at Doncaster, is no other than he who was sure of winning; who could prove by his betting-book that he must win by backing Chaff against the field. He is a fine specimen of the family of Oldbirds. So is the careful, cautious wight, the original Master Surecard, the man of many savings, who in his old age falls in love with a loan; who dies in prison from the pressure of foreign bonds, or drowns himself in the new canal by way of securing what he calls his share. The genuine old bird is a pigeon.

Samuel Laman Blanchard

But once upon a time, we could play shove ha'penny, and read a penny dreadful, and sing a song of sixpence, and take the King's shilling; and once upon a time even further in the past, five sparrows could be bought for two farthings, and yet not be forgotten. Somehow, the transaction would not have had the same effect if the sparrows had been sold for two pee.

Bernard Levin