“Here’s one that my uncle always used to tell my mom, um it’s “Money is like manure- it’s no good unless it’s spread around.” – the backstory is that my uncle was one of the most giving guys around. Everyone in New Jersey loved him, as a kid he would go through his parents wallets and take twenty dollar bills and go to Del Mar (which is a slummy part of New J ersey ) and leave twenty dollar bills on people porches.”
My friends uncle used this proverb to justify his legendary generosity. I Googled the phrase and found that the proverb has been attributed to many great thinkers and business men, in many different forms. I found a variation of the proverb listed in Raymond Lamont Brown’s “A Book of Proverbs” (Taplinger Publishing Company, New York, New York) on page 121- “Money, like manure, does no good till it is spread.” The book was published in 1970, so the proverbs has been in American circulation at least since then.
