Wealth & Money Quote by Norton Simon

Norton Simon’s line is blunt in the way money often is: uncomplicated, unembarrassed, and meant to end the discussion. It’s not a romantic anti-intellectual sneer so much as a mission statement from a certain American type - the builder who treats formal education as a speed bump on the road to leverage. The sentence works because it’s framed as preference, not ideology. “Liked” makes the choice sound almost innocent, like picking baseball over piano, even as it smuggles in a hard claim: school is optional, money is real.

The subtext is an argument about legitimacy. In the midcentury business world Simon moved through, credibility could be purchased, acquired, or displayed through results: deals closed, companies grown, institutions endowed. If money is the scoreboard, then school is just practice. That’s why the quote lands with a faintly defiant humor; it shrugs off the moral scolding that usually follows dropping out or cutting corners. It also anticipates a familiar mythos: the self-made figure who doesn’t need permission from credentialing systems because the market will certify him.

There’s a second edge here, too, especially given Simon’s later role as a major art collector and founder of a museum. The line hints at a world where wealth becomes its own curriculum. You can skip the classroom and still end up curating culture - not by passing exams, but by buying the artifacts, hiring the expertise, and ultimately shaping what the public gets to see. It’s a small sentence with a big, slightly unsettling implication: education can be admired, even funded, without ever being obeyed.