Branson wrote these two sentences himself, in a post titled “Why money is like manure” published on his Virgin.com blog on 13 February 2014 — the wording is confirmed word-for-word in the archived page. The analogy is not his, though: he credits Thornton Wilder in the very next sentence, and the comparison was already in print in Francis Bacon’s Essays.
“If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good” Richard Branson, "Why money is like manure," Richard Branson blog, Virgin.com, 13 February 2014. Branson's own wording — but he credits Thornton Wilder in the next sentence, and Francis Bacon had printed "money is like muck, not good except it be spread" in his Essays centuries earlier.
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Evoking the world of Richard Branson — English entrepreneur · co-founder of the Virgin Group. Theme: "If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good". 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.
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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good". 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
The post it comes from
Source
Why money is like manure
Published
13 February 2014 · Richard Branson blog, Virgin.com
Author
Richard Branson
Older ancestor
Francis Bacon, “Of Seditions And Troubles,” The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral — dated 1625 by Quote Investigator
If you are lucky enough to have it, then money is like manure. … If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good.Virgin.com · 13 Feb 2014
The next sentence in the post is Branson’s own citation: he quotes Thornton Wilder’s “money is like manure” line by name. The rest of the post is about Virgin Unite, the Carbon War Room, The B Team, The Elders and the Giving Pledge.
1625 — Francis Bacon’s Essays, in “Of Seditions And Troubles”: “And money is like muck, not good except it be spread” (Project Gutenberg ↗). The 1625 date is Quote Investigator’s.
1954 — Thornton Wilder gives Dolly Levi the manure line in The Matchmaker, Act 4 (Wikiquote ↗). Quote Investigator records it being quoted in a January 1956 LIFE review of the play.
16 June 1961 — Time quotes Clint Murchison Jr. relaying his father’s advice, in the “stinks like hell” wording (TIME archive ↗).
13 February 2014 — Richard Branson posts “Why money is like manure” on Virgin.com, with the exact wording quoted today and a credit to Wilder (archived page ↗).
This exact wording comes from a blog post first published on 13 February 2014, so it is in copyright — quote it briefly and with attribution to Branson and Virgin.com. The much older ancestor is free: Francis Bacon’s Essays have long been in the public domain. Wilder’s 1954 Matchmaker line and the 1961 Time text are not.
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
Right author, borrowed joke
This is the unusual case: the attribution is correct. Branson wrote the sentences and published them under his own name. What travels with the quote and is not right is the assumption that the idea is his — and three older lines get swapped for it.
✓
the underlying analogyFrancis Bacon Genuine, but a different sentence
Bacon really did make the comparison, and much earlier. In “Of Seditions And Troubles” the text reads “And money is like muck, not good except it be spread” (Project Gutenberg ↗). Looser modern rewordings of that sentence circulate as Bacon quotations; Branson’s two-sentence version is not one of them.
✓
the sentence Branson quoted nextThornton Wilder Quoted by Branson, not written by him
“Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow” is Dolly Levi’s line in The Matchmaker (1954), Act 4 (Wikiquote ↗). Branson quotes it by name directly after his own sentences, so the two get merged into one “Branson quote” — and occasionally Wilder’s line alone gets a Branson byline.
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the “stinks like hell” versionClint Murchison Jr. and Clint Murchison Sr. A different, older wording
Time of 16 June 1961 quotes the Texas financier Clint Murchison Jr. passing on advice from his father: “Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good. But if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell” (TIME archive ↗). The two wordings are often confused.
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the heap-and-stench structure“Mr. Bettenham” Bacon’s own source
Bacon did not claim the two-part form. Quote Investigator notes that in Apophthegmes New and Old Bacon credits a Mr. Bettenham with the version where riches in a heap gave a stench but spread upon the ground caused much fruit (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓The quote is genuinely Branson’s wording, from his post “Why money is like manure” on Virgin.com, 13 February 2014 (archived original ↗) — but the analogy is centuries older, and Branson said so himself, crediting Wilder in his next breath.
Context
An old joke, retold by a billionaire
Branson did not drop this line in a boardroom. It opens a short post about giving money away — Virgin Unite, the Carbon War Room’s Caribbean renewables work, drug-policy reform in Miami, The Elders in Iran, and the Giving Pledge he and his wife Joan had signed. The sentence before it is the setup: money, he writes, is like manure, and this might sound like he is full of it, but hear him out. The two sentences people quote are the punchline of a philanthropy argument, not a theory of capital.
What makes the line worth a page is that Branson was consciously passing on someone else’s joke. He names Thornton Wilder immediately after. And Wilder was not first either: Francis Bacon put “money is like muck, not good except it be spread” into his Essays, and Quote Investigator tracks the heap-and-stench version onward through King James I, English proverb collections, a 1961 Time profile of a Texas oilman, and finally to Branson. The saying survives because manure is the rare metaphor that carries both halves of the thought — useless when hoarded, productive when scattered.
And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. — Francis Bacon
The closest ancestors, in Bacon’s own words and in Texas
The structure of Branson’s version — a stinking heap set against a beneficial spreading — is closer to a second Bacon text than to the famous Essays line. Quote Investigator points to Bacon’s Apophthegmes New and Old, where the two-part form is credited not to Bacon but to a “Mr. Bettenham”: riches heaped up gave a stench, but spread upon the ground caused much fruit.
The closest twentieth-century relative is Texan. Time of 16 June 1961 has Clint Murchison Jr. repeating advice from his father: money spread around does a lot of good, but piled up in one place it stinks like hell. That version and Branson’s are close enough in shape that the two are often confused.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Born 18 July 1950 · English entrepreneur · co-founder of the Virgin Group
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, building it from a mail-order record business into an airline, rail, telecoms and spaceflight conglomerate. He is also an unusually prolific blogger: for years he posted short, plain-spoken pieces on Virgin.com, which is where this line first appeared. The post is a philanthropy piece rather than a business one — it runs through Virgin Unite, the Carbon War Room, The Elders and the Giving Pledge he and his wife Joan had signed.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Richard Branson, “Why money is like manure,” Richard Branson blog, Virgin.com, February 13, 2014, archived at the Internet Archive. Earlier ancestor of the analogy: Francis Bacon, “Of Seditions and Troubles,” in The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral; Quote Investigator’s chronology of the saying begins with Bacon in 1625.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you let money pile up, it starts to stink. But if you spread it around then it can do a lot of good’?” Last verified 30 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-let-money-pile-up-it-starts-to-stink-but-if-you/