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# Weekend Words: Penny
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-penny/
- Published: 2016-10-16T13:30:22.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:28:38.000Z
- Description: "A penny saved is a penny to squander."
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Art, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/10/coin.jpg)

Gerrit van Honthorst, “Old Woman Examining a Coin by a Lantern” (1623), oil on canvas, 75 x 60 cm, The Kremer Collection (image via Web Gallery of Art)

This week, an article in The New York Times asked, “[Why Doesn’t the United States (Finally) Get Rid of the Penny?](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/insider/why-doesnt-the-united-states-finally-get-rid-of-the-penny.html?%5Fr=0&ref=hyperallergic.com)”: “Average American workers earned nearly a penny a second in 2015\. It’s literally not worth their time to bend down and pluck one from the sidewalk.”

> A penny saved is a penny to squander.  
>  
> **—Ambrose Bierce**

> A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he’ll give him sixpence. But the second time it’ll only be a three penny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he’ll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.  
>  
> **—Bertolt Brecht, *The Threepenny Opera***

> Whispered, ‘I am too young,’  
> And then, ‘I am old enough’;  
> Wherefore I threw a penny  
> To find out if I might love.  
> ‘Go and love, go and love, young man,  
> If the lady be young and fair.’  
> Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,  
> I am looped in the loops of her hair.  
>  
> **—William Butler Yeats, “Brown Penny”**

> King George, passing slowly in a closed car, looking like a big, rather worn penny in the window.  
>  
> **—Geoffrey Madan, *Notebooks***

> Never was heard such a terrible curse!  
> But what gave rise  
> To no little surprise,  
> Nobody seemed one penny the worse!  
>  
> **—R. H. Barham, “The Jackdaw of Rheims”**

> I’ve got a penny-ante talent, out of which I try to drum up a living for myself. And what nobody seems to realize is that it’s just as difficult to get a bad idea as a good one.  
>  
> **—Kathleen Winsor**

> A penny is a lot of money if you haven’t got a penny  
>  
> **—Yiddish proverb**

> Every time it rains, it rains  
> Pennies from heaven.  
> Don’t you know each cloud contains  
> Pennies from heaven.  
>  
> **—Johnny Burke, “Pennies from Heaven”**

> Well then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you;  
> but that they call compliment is like the encounter  
> of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily,  
> methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me  
> the beggarly thanks.  
>  
> **—William Shakespeare, *As You Like It***

> Money, I don’t have any  
> I’m down to my last penny  
> But, darling, don’t cry over me  
>  
> **—Bob Gaudio, “Big Man in Town”**

> When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?  
>  
> **—George Carlin**

> There was a young woman named Jenny,  
> Whose limericks weren’t worth a penny.  
> Her rhythm and rhyme  
> Were perfectly fine  
> But whenever she tried to write any,  
> She always had one line too many.  
>  
> **—Anonymous**