The Greatest Gold Quotes of All Time

People have treasured gold for millennia. They’ve draped it over the bodies. They’ve used it as money. They’ve even adorned their tombs with the yellow metal. As beloved as it is, it should come as no surprise that gold has been the subject of many famous quotes.

So, what are the greatest quotes featuring gold of all time? We wanted to find out so we held a contest. The prize – once ounce of pure gold.

Roy Sebag ran the contest through his Twitter account. Roy is the founder of GoldMoney, and SchiffGold is part of the GoldMoney family.

The contest was pretty simple. Respond to Roy’s tweet with a name and original quote by a historic figure in relation to gold.

I am giving away 1 ounce of gold worth $1,680 today. To enter the draw, you must respond to this tweet with a name and original quote by a historic figure in relation to Gold. Originality is key. @SchiffGold our coin business will reach out to the winner to arrange delivery.

— Roy Sebag (@roysebag) February 24, 2020

The response was fantastic. Over 500 people responded with quotes. Roy picked the top four and drew the winner out of a hat.

And the winner was…

“Love is the soul’s electric flame,
And gold its best conductor.” -Robert Burns

The quote comes from a poem.

She asked why wedding rings are made of gold;
I ventured this to instruct her;
Why, madam, love and lightning are the same,
On earth they glance, from Heaven they came.
Love is the soul’s electric flame,
And gold its best conductor.

The other finalists were as follows.

“Gold loves to make its way through guards, and breaks through barriers of stone more easily than the lightning’s bolt.” – Horace

“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all this is not gold.” – Leo Tolstoy

“Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver’s glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes the peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance.” – Nietzsche

“The return on gold does not depend on the fulfillment of some material condition. It is an ideological problem. It presupposes only one thing: the abandonment of the illusion that increasing the quantity of money creates prosperity.” Ludwig von Mises

And here are some more of the greatest gold quotes.

“Let us rejoice that we are poor, And have no gold to keep: We do not need to bar the door Ere we can go to sleep.” -Robert Leighton

“Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.” – Queen Elizabeth I

“Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.” – Norm Franz

“Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” – J.P. Morgan

“Gold — what can it not do, and undo?” — William Shakespeare

“We are often told that the Gold Standard will shackle us to the United States. I will deal with that in a moment. I will tell you what it will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality. For good or for ill, it will shackle us to reality.” – Winston Churchill

“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.” – Lord Byron

“Because gold is honest money it is disliked by dishonest men.” – Ron Paul

“O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good?” ― Euripides

“Everything has its limit- iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” – Mark twain

“Gold makes the ugly beautiful.” – Moliere

“[Gold] can be made either into bars, ingots, or coins…has no nationality [and] is considered, in all places and at all times, the immutable and fiduciary value par excellence.” – Charles de Gaulle

“When Gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent.” — Publilius Syrus

“An inch of time is an inch of gold, but an inch of time cannot be purchased for an inch of gold. Pure gold does not fear furnace. Read critically, and you will find each word worth a thousand ounces of gold. Words are mere bubbles of water, but deeds are drops of gold.” – 中国谚语

“Gold was a gift to Jesus. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!” — Mr. T

“Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.” -Murray Rothbard

“Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon … where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good.” Moses, Genesis 2:10-12

“Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.” -Seneca

“Stay gold Ponyboy.” – Johnny Cade in The Outsiders

“From a strictly economic point of view, buying gold in a major inflation and holding it probably presents the least risk of capital loss of any investment or speculation.” – Henry Hazlitt

“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.” Author-Poet Aberjhani