This is not a quotation from anything Rockefeller wrote or published. It reaches us as reported speech: Wikiquote ↗ files it under Disputed, recording it as quoted by Isaac Hewitt in 1879 testimony to the New York Assembly, and notes that Rockefeller doubted he had said it — citing David Freeman Hawke’s John D.: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers (1980). Wikiquote also flags that the line echoes John 4:32 ↗.
“I have ways of making money that you know nothing of” Disputed. Attributed to John D. Rockefeller through Isaac Hewitt’s 1879 testimony to the New York Assembly; Rockefeller doubted he said it, and the line echoes John 4:32.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of John D. Rockefeller — American businessman and philanthropist. Theme: "I have ways of making money that you know nothing of". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I have ways of making money that you know nothing of". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
What the attribution actually rests on
Claimed occasion
Testimony of Isaac Hewitt, New York Assembly, 1879
Where it is filed
Wikiquote — Disputed
Rockefeller’s own view
Doubted that he said it (Hawke, 1980)
Close echo
John 4:32, King James Version
I have ways of making money that you know nothing of.
Set this beside the King James rendering of John 4:32 — “But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” The shape is the same, and Wikiquote itself raises the parallel. That does not prove the remark was invented, but it does mean the sentence had a ready-made template in the most widely read book in nineteenth-century America.
Wikiquote ↗ does not treat this as a genuine Rockefeller quotation. It sits in the Disputed section, with the attribution given as Isaac Hewitt’s 1879 testimony to the New York Assembly and an explicit note that Rockefeller doubted saying it, sourced to David Freeman Hawke, John D.: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers (1980). The single genuinely supporting witness is therefore a recollection recorded decades after the events it describes.
We tried to reach the testimony itself and could not. The 1879 New York investigation is the Hepburn committee, whose proceedings are digitized; we searched six volumes of them and found no Isaac Hewitt at all — the only Hewitt in the text is Abraham S. Hewitt, a different man — and no sentence resembling this one the proceedings on archive.org ↗. That is not proof of absence: these are OCR scans, we did not search every volume, and the testimony may sit in a different record. But we could not confirm the citation, and we are not going to assert a locator we did not read.
The name is at least plausible. Rockefeller’s first job, in September 1855, was as an assistant bookkeeper at a small Cleveland produce commission firm called Hewitt & TuttleWikipedia on his early career ↗. Whether the Isaac Hewitt of the testimony is that Hewitt is an inference we cannot source, and we leave it as one.
We are asserting no rights status here, because we could not establish where the words were first published. If the 1879 testimony citation is correct, the underlying text would be a New York State legislative record from 1879 and free of copyright — but we were unable to locate it, and Hawke’s 1980 biography, which is the source actually in hand for the denial, is a modern in-copyright work. This is not legal advice.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why this one is doubted
Nothing here is fabricated outright — but every leg the attribution stands on is weaker than the confident way the line is usually quoted.
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One witness, no documentIsaac Hewitt, testifying in 1879 reported speech
The words come to us through someone else’s recollection at a hearing, not through anything Rockefeller wrote or was recorded saying. Wikiquote ↗ files the entry as Disputed for that reason.
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The subject denied itRockefeller himself per Hawke, 1980
Wikiquote records that Rockefeller doubted he had said this, citing David Freeman Hawke’s John D.: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers (1980). A denial is not decisive on its own, but it is the opposite of corroboration the entry ↗.
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It echoes scriptureJohn 4:32 a ready-made template
“But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of” King James Version ↗. Wikiquote raises the parallel itself. Remembered speech tends to drift toward familiar cadences, and few cadences were more familiar than this one.
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What we could not findThe testimony our own check
We searched six digitized volumes of the 1879 New York railroad inquiry and found no Isaac Hewitt and no such sentence the proceedings ↗. OCR is imperfect and we did not search exhaustively, so this settles nothing — but we could not verify the citation, and we would rather say so than repeat it as though we had.
✓Treat this as something a witness said Rockefeller said, in 1879, and that Rockefeller denied — not as a documented Rockefeller quotation Wikiquote, Disputed ↗.
Context
Why a hostile quotation sticks
Rockefeller spent decades in front of committees and grand juries, and a great deal of the folklore about him was generated there rather than by him. Testimony is sworn, published and quotable, which gives a remembered remark the surface texture of a document even when it is only a memory.
This particular sentence also does something useful for the person retelling it: it makes Rockefeller sound knowing and slightly sinister, which is exactly the character the era’s critics were trying to draw. Lines that confirm what an audience already suspects are the ones that survive.
It reaches us as something a witness said he said — which is not the same thing as a quotation.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1839–1937 · American businessman and philanthropist
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937) founded Standard Oil in 1870 and built it into the dominant force in American oil, before spending his later decades giving the money away through foundations, universities and medical research institutes. He was also, for thirty years, one of the most investigated men in the country — which matters here, because a great deal of what he is quoted as saying survives only as other people’s testimony about him, given under oath and often by opponents.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
The attribution, and its problem
Attributed to Rockefeller in the 1879 testimony of Isaac Hewitt before the New York Assembly, as recorded in the Disputed section of Wikiquote’s John D. Rockefeller page; Rockefeller doubted that he said it — David Freeman Hawke, John D.: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers (1980). We were unable to locate the testimony itself.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I have ways of making money that you know nothing of’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-have-ways-of-making-money-that-you-know-nothing-of/