take the cash and let the credit go

Some for the Glories of This World; and some / Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; / Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, / Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

1872, Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward FitzGerald, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Why not "take the cash and let the credit go"? Why pursue the elusive theoretical "unification" any further, when what we daily get from our sciences is an increasing wealth of detailed information and of practical guidance?

1913, Josiah Royce, in Introduction to The Foundations of Science by Henri Poincaré, authorized translation by George Bruce Halsted, (text at Project Gutenberg)

[N]o religious teacher was ever more opposed than Buddha in his scheme of salvation to every form of postponement and procrastination. He would have his followers take the cash and let the credit go—though the cash in this case is not the immediate pleasure but the immediate peace.

1927, Irving Babbit, “Buddha and the Occident”, in On Literature, Cultures, and Religion, published 2006, →ISBN, page 251

William Harding Johnson, $15,000-a-year superintendent of Chicago's school system, has been content to take the cash and let the credit go. He has made good money by co-authoring textbooks for Chicago's schools and from his tutoring school for teachers.

1946 January 28, “Education: Violator”, in Time, retrieved 03 Aug 2014

"Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

1977, Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (2011 edition), Author's Note (Google preview)