Almighty dollar

For example, the British writer Ben Jonson wrote in 1616: Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice, almighty gold.

[1] The "dollar" version of the phrase is commonly attributed to Washington Irving, who used it in the story "The Creole Village," first published in the 1837 edition of The Magnolia, a literary annual:[2][note 1] The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.Charles Dickens used the phrase in Chapter III, "Boston", of his American Notes, published in 1842.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton is often credited with coining the related phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar", which he used in his 1871 novel The Coming Race.

The song argues that money and greed are destroying the planet by blinding people to problems such as global warming and pollution.

The phrase "Almighty Dollar" is repeated many times in the song "Money (In God We Trust)" by the funk metal band Extreme.