“Money can’t buy love.”

THE MEMORABLE BEATLES LYRICS: “Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”        The Beatles        Lyrics from their 1964 song “Can’t Buy Me Love”        The saying “Money can’t buy love” wasn’t coined by the Beatles. It had been floating around as far back as the late 1800s and is a linguistic offspring of the earlier proverbial saying “Money can’t buy happiness,” which dates back to the early 1700s.        However, in more recent times, “Money can’t buy love” was popularized and made familiar to millions of people by the Beatles song “Can’t Buy Me Love.”                     The lyrics and music were written by Paul McCartney. He also sang the vocal alone, making it the first Beatles recording without harmony vocals by the other band members (John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr). It was released as a single in March 1964 and included on the soundtrack album for the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.

AN EARLIER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE: “Money don’t get everything it’s true What it don’t get, I can’t use Now give me money That’s what I want.”        Lyrics from the song “Money (That’s What I Want)”        Writing credits for the song are credited to Motown founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, who started out as a Motown receptionist. It was first recorded in 1959 by Janie’s friend Barrett Strong. His version became Motown’s first major hit song. Strong claimed he helped write the song and his name was originally included on the copyright registration. Three years later, after the song was being covered by various artists and Gordy realized it would continue to generate significant revenues, he had Barrett’s name removed from the copyright.        Ironically, one of the groups that covered the song was the Beatles. Their version, with John Lennon singing lead vocal, was released as a single in 1963.

A LATER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE: “They say that money Can’t buy love in this world But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine And a sixteen-year-old girl And a great big long limousine On a hot September night Now that may not be love but it is all right.”                     Randy Newman        American musician                     In his satirical song “It’s Money That I Love,” included on his 1979 album Born Again.

THE MARLOWE MISQUOTE: “Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”        Attributed (wrongly) to Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)        English playwright and poet, also believed to have been a secret spy for Queen Elizabeth                    This quip is credited to Marlowe by thousands of online posts and books. In fact, he never said it. The history of how it was erroneously attributed to Marlowe was traced by quote sleuth Garson O’Toole in a post on his great Quote Investigator site.        O’Toole concluded that the remark is of anonymous origin and was in circulation in the 1950s. In 1977, Laurence J. Peter included it in one of the sets of sayings in his highly popular book Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time. It appeared in parentheses above an actual quotation by Marlowe. After that, someone mistakenly cited “Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position” as Marlowe’s line and the misattribution has lived on.

AN ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT: “Economists assume that money can buy love, contrary to the Beatles, and will respond that love and other ‘positive’ emotions can be quantified as having an infinite value and hence beat all other interests at stake. Misery can be compensated for with money, and courts do that on a daily basis.”        Lucie Guibault        Canadian legal expert and Associate Professor of Law at Dalhousie University        A comment in a footnote of her book The Future of the Public Domain: Identifying the Commons in Information Law

OGDEN’S ECONOMIC OBSERVATION: “The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny – Have you ever tried to buy them without money?”        Ogden Nash (1902-1971)        American poet and humorist        In his poem “The Terrible People,” which was first published in the February 11, 1933 issue of The New Yorker magazine and included in the book of Nash’s poems published later that year, Happy Days.       The poem mocks the way some rich people to downplay the advantages money gives them. It starts with the line “People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it.”

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One man’s – or woman’s – trash is another’s treasure...

THE TRASH TO TREASURE RULE: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”         A popular proverbial saying in America since the late 20th century. Its basic meaning is that something which seems worthless to one person is often deemed valuable by another. This modern proverb is, of course, a variation of the much older English proverb “One man's meat is another man's poison,” which dates back to sometime before 1709, when it was recorded by language scholar Oswald Dykes in his book English Proverbs.

THE TRASHY MEN RULE: “One woman’s trash is another woman’s boyfriend.”          Laura Ruby         American novelist        Quip made by a character in Ruby’s novel I’m Not Julia Roberts (2007)

THE TRAMP STAMP VARIATION: “One woman’s tramp stamp is another woman’s declaration of undying love — until she dumps the lying SOB and is stuck with his name forever.”          Alexis Munier        American-born writer currently living in Switzerland        From her entry about the term “tramp stamp” in The Little Red Book of Very Dirty Words (2009)

THE FAMOUS COHEN V. CALIFORNIA FREE SPEECH DECISION: “One man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.”        U.S. Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan II (1899-1971)        In majority opinion he wrote for the Supreme Court’s decision on Cohen v. California (1971)        The case involved an anti-Vietnam War activist named Paul Cohen, who had been convicted of “offensive conduct” and sentenced to 30 days in jail for publicly wearing a jacket that had “FUCK THE DRAFT” printed on it. The Court reversed Cohen’s conviction, finding that it violated his Constitutional right to free speech under the First Amendment.

THE OGDEN NASH QUIP: “One man’s remorse is another man’s reminiscence.”               Ogden Nash (1902-1971)         American poet and humorist         From his poem “A Clean Conscience Never Relaxes” (1936), included in his book I’m a Stranger Here Myself (1938)

THE BOOB JOB QUIP: “One woman’s self-objectifying excess is another woman’s décolletage.”        Ann Scales (1952-2012)        American law professor and author         In her book Legal Feminism (2006)

THE CHARLIE SHEEN SPIT JOB QUIP: “One man’s saliva is another man’s mousse.”        Charlie Sheen, as the character Charlie Harper        In an episode of his former TV series Two and a Half Men (“Can You Eat Human Flesh with Wooden Teeth?”, first aired February 14, 2005)

NICK MANCUSO’S OBSERVATION ABOUT RELIGION: “One man’s superstition is another man’s religion!”          Nick Mancuso, as the Indian police officer Youngman Duran         One of his lines in the batty horror movie Nightwing (1979)

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Related reading: books about proverbial sayings and idioms...

“Variety’s the spice of life.”

THE POET’S FAMOUS QUOTE: “Variety’s the very spice of life That gives it all its flavour.”        William Cowper (1731-1800)        British poet        From his multi-volume poetic work The Task (1785), Book II, “The Timepiece”        The saying “Variety’s the spice of life” is usually traced to this poem by Cowper, though it may already have been proverbial when he used it. Another familiar line from this poem is “God made the country, and man made the town.” Other famous lines from Cowper’s poetry include: “God moves in a mysterious way” (Olney Hymns, 1779) and “I am monarch of all I survey” (“Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk”, 1782).

A PRISONER’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Variety is not the spice of life. It is the very stuff of it.”        Christopher Burney (1917–1980)        British author and former spy for British Special Operations during World War II         Burney’s conclusion in the book Solitary Confinement (1952), an account of the 18 months he spent in a Nazi prison cell during World War II.

JOHNNY CARSON’S QUIP: “If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.”         Johnny Carson (1925-2005)        American comedian and host of The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992        Quoted in Ifferisms: An Anthology of Aphorisms That Begin with the Word "IF" (2009), one of the many entertaining books of quotations compiled by quote maven Dr. Mardy Grothe

OGDEN NASH’S VARIATION: “I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,    particularly if he has income and she is pattable.”         Ogden Nash (1902-1971)        The poem “I Do, I Will, I Have,” included in Nash’s book Versus (1949)

BASEBALL WISDOM FROM “THE SCOOTER”: “The bunt is the spice of baseball, the unexpected weapon, the stiletto in the ribs.”        Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto (1917-2007)        Baseball player for the New York Yankees, elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994        Quoted in the Baseball Digest, July 1964

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Recommended reading: quotation books by Mardy Grothe...