Quotes provide brief little pearls of wisdom, scattered throughout time and history. Here are 150 insightful personal finance and money quotes, ranging from Aristotle to Ellen DeGeneres.
You just might find one or two that resonate and act to shift your money mindset, for the better.
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Saving money quotes
That what each of us calls our “necessary expenses” will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.
The purpose of a budget is to help thy purse to fatten
George S. Clason – The Richest Man in Babylon
Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.
Joe Biden
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.
Ben Franklin
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
Robert Frost
Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.
George Carlin
If you’re saving, you’re succeeding.
Steve Burkholder
Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don’t want..to impress people that they don’t like.
Will Rogers
It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.
Robert Kiyosaki
If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money; but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage.
Brigham Young
Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.
Nathan W. Morris
Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can’t win until you do this.
Dave Ramsey
The person who doesn’t know where his next dollar is coming from usually doesn’t know where his last dollar went.
Unknown
Beware of small expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.
Benjamin Franklin
Never spend your money before you have it.
Thomas Jefferson
Frugality includes all the other virtues.
Cicero
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
Charles Dickens
Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.
Roger Babson
The habit of saving is itself an education; it fosters every virtue, teaches self-denial, cultivates the sense of order, trains to forethought, and so broadens the mind.
T. T. Munger
Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks–it says, “Goodbye”.
Frank Sinatra
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.
Will Rogers
A simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some.
Joe Moore
Try to save something while your salary is small; it’s impossible to save after you begin to earn more.
Jack Benny
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
Samuel Butler
Quotes about building wealth
Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it.
Tim Ferriss
Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
Warren Buffet
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
Henry David Thoreau
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
Edmund Burke
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for ten years.
Warren Buffet
Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shuts down for ten years.
Warren Buffet
I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.
Pablo Picasso
The four most expensive words in the English language are, ‘This time it’s different.’
Sir John Templeton
If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn’t be in stocks.
John Bogle
When buying shares, ask yourself, would you buy the whole company?
Rene Rivkin
Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That’s not just a catchy slogan. It’s the very essence of successful investing.
J. Paul Getty
Money makes money. And the money that makes money makes more money.
Benjamin Franklin
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin
I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.
Warren Buffett
If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.
George Bernard Shaw
How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case.
Robert G. Allen
Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.
Paul Samuelson
Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.
Zig Ziglar
Know what you own, and know why you own it.
Peter Lynch
Money is usually attracted, not pursued.
Jim Rohn
Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.
P.T. Barnum
The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.
Warren Buffett
Many folks think they aren’t good at earning money, when what they don’t know is how to use it.
Frank A. Clark
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
Oscar Wilde
Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
Andrew Carnegie
Money is a guarantee that we may have what we want in the future. Though we need nothing at the moment it ensures the possibility of satisfying a new desire when it arises.
Aristotle
The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.
Ben Graham
The more you learn, the more you earn.
Frank Clark
Quotes on setting financial goals
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Thomas A. Edison
If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it!
Jonathan Winters
Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.
Robert Kiyosaki
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
Zig Ziglar
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Lao Tzu
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
Oprah Winfrey
Persist – don’t take no for an answer. If you’re happy to sit at your desk and not take any risk, you’ll be sitting at your desk for the next 20 years.
David Rubenstein
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
Money grows on the tree of persistence.
Japanese Proverb
Quotes on money and time
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Time is money.
Benjamin Franklin
Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.
Jim Rohn
If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents. Value what you know & start charging for it.
Kim Garst
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
Mark Twain
My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
Steve Jobs
Everyday is a bank account, and time is our currency. No one is rich, no one is poor, we’ve got 24 hours each.
Christopher Rice
Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.
Michael Leboeuf
You can be young without money, but you can’t be old without it.”
Tennessee Williams
Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
George Burns
Money mindset quotes
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Epictetus
The trick is to stop thinking of it as ‘your’ money.
IRS auditor
Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.
Napoleon Hill
No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself.
Plato
He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all.
Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.
Henry Ford
Money is like muck—not good unless it be spread.
Francis Bacon
Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
Gandhi
Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.
Kahlil Gibran
It doesn’t matter about money; having it, not having it. Or having clothes, or not having them. You’re still left alone with yourself in the end.
Billy Idol
The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
Phillip Fisher
The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.
Anonymous
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.
Maya Angelou
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
Ayn Rand
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.
Benjamin Franklin
Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.
William A. Ward
Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.
Charles Caleb Colton
A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.
Henry Kravis
Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience.
P. T. Barnum
Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
Miguel de Cervantes
Money often costs too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I had money everyone called me brother.
Polish Proverb
Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.
Benjamin Franklin
I pity that man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth shall starve in the process.
Benjamin Harrison
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Jonathan Swift
Money and women are the most sought after and the least known about of any two things we have.
Will Rogers
If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.
Billy Graham
Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
Warren Buffett
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.
Norman Vincent Peale
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
Henry Ford
When it comes to money, you can’t win. If you focus on making it, you’re materialistic. If you try to but don’t make any, you’re a loser. If you make a lot and keep it, you’re a miser. If you make it and spend it, you’re a spendthrift. If you don’t care about making it, you’re unambitious. If you make a lot and still have it when you die, you’re a fool–for trying to take it with you. The only way to really win with money is to hold it loosely–and be generous with it to accomplish things of value.
John C. Maxwell
Unexpected money is a delight. The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more.
Mark Twain
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
Henry Ford
You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.
Dave Ramsey
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill
It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.
George Lorimer
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
Seneca
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
Benjamin Franklin
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
Zig Ziglar
Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none.
Richard M. DeVos
There are people who have money and people who are rich.
Coco Chanel
Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.
Carl Sandburg
That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.
Margaret Thatcher
If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough.
Vicki Robin
If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
Earl Wilson
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
Steven Wright
Quotes about having money
Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.
Chris Rock
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
Henry David Thoreau
Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.
David Lee Roth
Money poisons you when you’ve got it, and starves you when you haven’t.
D.H. Lawrence
When a fellow says it ain’t the money but the principle of the thing, it’s the money.
Artemus Ward
Money is not the most important thing in the world. Love is. Fortunately, I love money.
Jackie Mason
People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.
Joan Rivers
Money can’t buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories.
Ronald Reagan
Financial success quotes
I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.
Robert Bosch
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon
I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Steve Jobs
It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.
David Feherty
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley
If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.
Simone Weil
Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
John Wayne
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
Jim Rohn
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Bruce Lee
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
Dale Carnegie
Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.
Abraham Lincoln
Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
If plan A fails, remember there are 25 more letters.
Chris Guillebeau
Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt
Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.
Nelson Mandela
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
Benjamin Franklin
Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Finance is not merely about making money. It’s about achieving our deep goals and protecting the fruits of our labor. It’s about stewardship and, therefore, about achieving the good society.
Robert J. Shiller
Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.
Mike Ditka
I say always follow your passion, no matter what, because even if it’s not the same financial success, it’ll lead you to the money that’ll make you the happiest.
Ellen DeGeneres
