money talks

Idioms and Phrases

Wealth has great influence, as in Big contributors to campaigns are generally rewarded with important posts—in politics money talks . The idea behind this idiom was stated by Euripides in the fifth century b.c. , and some 2,000 years later Erasmus spoke of “the talking power of money” ( Adagia , 1532). The precise current locution, however, only began to be used about 1900.