Meanings
- alternativeAlternative form of money can't buy happiness.
Money cannot buy happiness; as you can see, my family is deeply saddened by the loss of our father.
2015, Anthony Ford, chapter 4, in Unequal Exchange, [CreateSpace], →ISBN, page 442 more examples
They toil, lie, cheat, swindle, and endanger their souls for wealth. There are but few exceptions to this rule—we are nearly all in the same boat. It is strange that humanity will conduct itself thus, when it sees how little pleasure is derived from its riches; when it knows, as well as it knows anything, that money cannot buy happiness.
1866 February 3, “More Money”, in The Palmer Journal, volume XVI, number 46, Palmer, Mass.: Gordon M. Fisk & Co., →OCLC, front page, column 4“Ah! then, why do you not try to marry here?” / “To marry! It seems to me when one has no fortune, the first thought should be to assure one’s self of an independence. You are not absolutely without means; and money cannot buy happiness. I pity young girls who, like Marguerite, are only married for their gold.”
1871, Maurice Sand [pseudonym; Jean-François-Maurice-Arnauld Dudevant], translated by S[ophia] A. Da Ponte, “Mark’s Journal”, in Callirhoé. […], Philadelphia, Pa.: Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger, →OCLC, part I, pages 48–49
Cite this entry
money cannot buy happiness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/money%20cannot%20buy%20happiness
“money cannot buy happiness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/money%20cannot%20buy%20happiness. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “money cannot buy happiness,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/money%20cannot%20buy%20happiness.
Source: money cannot buy happiness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.