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About this quote

What does it mean?
Politeness that depends on money disappears when a person has no money.
In plain terms
People are nice to you only if you have money.
What can you take from it?
Money influences how polite people are to you.

Where it applies

  • social interactions
  • business

Putting it to work

  • be wary of conditional kindness
  • seek intrinsic value

Questions to consider

  • How do you spot true kindness?
  • Is respect earned or bought?

Another view

Money often enables people to maintain social obligations.

More from Charles Dickens

  1. He is not, as he forcibly remarks, 'one of those fortunate men who, if they were to dive under one side of a barge stark-naked, would come up on the other with…

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  2. I used to sit, think, think, thinking, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on.

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  3. The dignity of his office is never impaired by the absence of efforts on his part to maintain it.

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