Meaning & Analysis
When wealth is offered or used upfront, it removes obstacles and creates opportunities, making any path or objective accessible.
Insights
The Power of Wealth
Money is depicted as the ultimate tool of power and influence, capable of bypassing rules, regulations, and social hierarchies to achieve any goal.
Corruption and Access
The proverb implies that access and opportunity are commodities for sale, suggesting a world where integrity and meritocracy can be subverted by bribery and financial leverage.
Social Mobility
Wealth is presented as the primary enabler of social mobility and personal freedom, allowing an individual to transcend their station and circumstances.
A Commentary on Human Nature
The proverb serves as a cynical observation on human nature, suggesting that most people and systems have a price and will yield to financial persuasion.
Cultural Cynicism
The proverb reflects a timeless and cynical understanding of social mechanics, where financial influence is the master key to overcoming barriers. Its presence in Shakespearean drama signifies its acceptance as a piece of worldly wisdom during a period of burgeoning mercantilism.
Psychology of Influence
This proverb captures a fundamental psychological truth about how wealth alters social interactions. Money acts as a powerful social lubricant, often overriding merit, status, or moral considerations to create opportunities for its possessor.
Historical Precedent
Historically, this idea is ancient, echoing Philip of Macedon's belief that no fortress was impregnable if a donkey laden with gold could reach its gates. The proverb distills this military and political strategy into a general principle of social navigation.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The phrase 'all ways lie open' serves as a powerful metaphor for unlimited access, opportunity, and the removal of all conceivable obstacles.
Personification
Money is personified as a herald or an agent that actively precedes a person to clear their path, giving it an active, powerful quality.
Conditional Structure
The 'If... then' structure presents the proverb as a conditional, universal law, framing wealth as the direct and inevitable cause of opportunity.
Transcription
Quotations
Whosoever hath money may go where he list, and do whatsoever he will at his own pleasure.
[Title]
Money makes all gates to flye open.
Shakespeare Citations
For they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open.
'Tis gold Which buys admittance.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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