Word.ws English Dictionary

money talks, bullshit walks

money talks, bullshit walks proverb: attempting to accomplish a goal by demonstrating possession of material resources will succeed, while attempting to accomplish the same goal through mere rhetoric will fail.

Proverb

money talks, bullshit walks

  1. (slang, vulgar) Attempting to accomplish a goal by demonstrating possession of material resources will succeed, while attempting to accomplish the same goal through mere rhetoric will fail.
    • “You taught me a great expression a few years ago, Joey—don’t forget it yourself.”
      “What expression?” I asked.
      “Money talks—bullshit walks. Joey, the further away from the Chairman I get, the better I like it.”1968, Keefe Brasselle, The Cannibals: A Novel about Television's Savage Chieftains, page p. 68
    • As my former congressman put it so inelegantly: "Money talks; bullshit walks."1984, Jack DeSario, Stuart Langton, Symposium on Citizen Participation and Public Policy, page 321

Forms of money talks, bullshit walks

alternative formmoney talks and bullshit walks

Origin of money talks, bullshit walks

First appeared c. 1968 in the US; a rhyming elaboration of money talks.

Questions about money talks, bullshit walks

What does money talks, bullshit walks mean?
Money talks, bullshit walks means attempting to accomplish a goal by demonstrating possession of material resources will succeed, while attempting to accomplish the same goal through mere rhetoric will fail.
What part of speech is money talks, bullshit walks?
Money talks, bullshit walks is a proverb.

Words near money talks, bullshit walks in the dictionary

  1. money squeezings
  2. money supplies
  3. money supply
  4. money talks
  5. money talks and bullshit walks
  6. money talks, bullshit walks
  7. money talks, wealth whispers
  8. money to burn
  9. money tree
  10. money trees
  11. money won is twice as sweet as money earned

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: money talks, bullshit walks (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-money talks, bullshit walks.wav.

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