"Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper"
About this Quote
The metaphor of the “desperate gamblers” isn’t moral panic so much as diagnosis. Gambling implies risk chosen knowingly, yet Mackay pairs it with “delusion,” suggesting that in bubbles people both volunteer for danger and misperceive it. That contradiction is the engine of mania: the crowd feels shrewd while acting reckless, persuading itself that speculation is prudence because everyone else is doing it.
Then there’s the elegantly dated terror of “the turn of a piece of paper.” Mackay is writing in an era when modern finance is becoming legible to ordinary people and therefore newly mythic: banknotes, shares, and promissory instruments detach wealth from tangible goods. A “piece of paper” can suddenly stand in for farms, ships, livelihoods, even state stability. The subtext is political as much as psychological: markets aren’t merely arenas of private ambition; they can conscript entire societies into the same illusion, wagering “almost their existence” on symbols everyone agrees to treat as real.
Mackay’s intent, ultimately, is to puncture the romance of speculation by showing its true antagonist: not scarcity, but credulity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). Quote attributed to Mackay’s discussion of money/speculation in that work. |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Mackay, Charles. (2026, January 15). Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-again-has-often-been-a-cause-of-the-142104/
Chicago Style
Mackay, Charles. "Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-again-has-often-been-a-cause-of-the-142104/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/money-again-has-often-been-a-cause-of-the-142104/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
