Who really said it
Spoken by Lily Bart to Lawrence Selden in The House of Mirth (1905), Book I, Chapter 6 — confirmed verbatim in the original published text.
Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?
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Verified quote & credit
“The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it” Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
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In context
Evoking the world of Edith Wharton — American novelist, first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Theme: "The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it". 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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Provenance
"That's unjust, I think, because, as I understand it, one of the conditions of citizenship is not to think too much about money, and the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it." "You might as well say that the only way not to think about air is to have enough to breathe."
Dialogue between Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden.
Read the chapter on WikisourceHow we verified this
The House of Mirth was first published in 1905, well before the 1928/1931 U.S. public-domain cutoff, so the novel — and this line from it — is in the public domain in the United States.
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
The quote is genuinely Wharton's, but two smaller distortions circulate online.
Some quotation pages render the line as "The only way to not think about money…" rather than Wharton's actual "the only way not to think about money…" — confirmed by comparing the Goodreads version against the original text.
At least one print-on-demand reprint uses this line as a marketing subtitle on the cover of Wharton's later, unrelated novel The Glimpses of the Moon. The full text of that novel, checked directly on Project Gutenberg, does not contain the line at all; it belongs solely to The House of Mirth (1905).
Context
The line is not Wharton's own aphorism offered in her own voice — it is dialogue given to Lily Bart, the beautiful but financially precarious heroine of The House of Mirth, during a bantering exchange with Lawrence Selden about whether she could ever be truly happy among the "idle rich."
Selden immediately punctures Lily's line with a rejoinder — "You might as well say that the only way not to think about air is to have enough to breathe" — making clear the novel treats the sentiment as a clever but self-deceiving rationalization, not a moral endorsed by the author.
"...the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it."
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Full original chapter text containing the exact quote in context
Public-domain full text of the 1905 novel
Sourced quote listing citing Book I, Chapter 6
Biography and literary significance
Full text of Wharton's 1922 novel, used to confirm the quote does NOT appear there despite a mislabeled reprint
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The author
For writers & researchers
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905, Book I, Ch. 6.
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905.
Wharton, E. (1905). The House of Mirth. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-only-way-not-to-think-about-money-is-to-have-a-great/