I’m just a retired guy who made a couple billion by being in the right place at the right time.
—Richard Rainwater (1944–2015) American Investor
Money can’t buy health, happiness, or what it did last year.
—Indian Proverb
I don’t want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) American Actor, Model, Singer
Money won’t make you happy, but everybody wants to find out for themselves.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American Author
Money never made a fool of anybody; it only shows them up.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money. Money, money everywhere and still not enough! And then no money, or a little money, or less money, or more money but money always money . and if you have money , or you don’t have money, it is the money that counts, and money makes money, but what makes money make money?
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules.
—Buzzie Bavasi (1914–2008) American Baseball Executive
Finance, like time, devours its own children.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
I don’t know about you, but where I went to school, Money Management 101 wasn’t offered. Instead we learned about the War of 1812, which of course is something I use every single day.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it’s greedy or loving.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
Penny wise is often pound foolish.
—French Proverb
Money doesn’t mind if we say it’s evil, it goes from strength to strength. It’s a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.
—Martin Amis (b.1949) British Novelist, Journalist
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
There are people who have money and people who are rich.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Money is usually attracted, not pursued.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.
—Jesse Lauriston Livermore (1877–1940) American Investor
More people should learn to tell their dollars where to go instead of asking them where they went.
—Roger Babson (1875–1967) American Economist
The most popular labor-saving device is still money.
—Phyllis George (1949–2020) American Television Broadcaster
When you let money speak for you, it drowns out anything else you meant to say.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
To desire money is much nobler than to desire success. Desiring money may mean desiring to return to your country, or marry the woman you love, or ransom your father from brigands. But desiring success must mean that you take an abstract pleasure in the unbrotherly act of distancing and disgracing other men.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.
—Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian-born American Composer, Musician
Fifteen percent of the bill for the waiter; another 5% of the bill for the captain, in the places where he makes the salad and generally works at the job; one dollar per bottle for the wine steward; and/or a buck for the bartender if he had made several drinks. (And don’t think) you can walk out without tipping if you have been dissatisfied. … .
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that Cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
you must get money to chase you, but never let it catch up.
—Denis Waitley (b.1933) American Motivational Speaker, Author
Comparatively few people know what a million dollars actually is. To the majority it is a gaseous concept, swelling or decreasing as the occasion suggests. In the minds of politicians, perhaps more than anywhere, the notion of a million dollars has this accordion-like ability to expand or contract; if they are disposing of it, the million is a pleasing sum, reflecting warmly upon themselves; if somebody else wants it, it becomes a figure of inordinate size, not to be compassed by the rational mind.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canadian Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
I haven’t got as much money as some folks, but I’ve got as much impudence as any of them, and that’s the next thing to money.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The love of money grows as the money itself grows.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
Profits are an opinion, cash is a fact.
—Unknown
It is often easier to assemble armies than it is to assemble army revenues.
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American Political leader, Politician, Lawyer
Money alone is only a mean; it presupposes a man to use it. The rich man can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence to see…. The purse may be full and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him … he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Think of yourself as a container for wealth. If your container is small and your money is big, what’s going to happen? You will lose it. Your container will overflow and the excess money will spill out all over the place. You simply cannot have more money than the container. Therefore you must grow to be a big container so you cannot only hold more wealth but also attract more wealth. The universe abhors a vacuum and if you have a very large money container, it will rush in to fill the space.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
The trick is to make sure you don’t die waiting for prosperity to come.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with.
—Charles Farrar Browne (Artemus Ward) (1834–67) American Humorist, Writer
Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Money couldn’t buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.
—Spike Milligan (1918–2002) Irish Writer, Comedian
American business needs a lifting purpose greater than the struggle of materialism.
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st American President
Ask thy purse what thou should spend.
—Scottish Proverb
I have not observed men’s honesty to increase with their riches.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.
—J. Paul Getty (1892–1976) American Business Person, Art Collector, Philanthropist
Esteem money neither more nor less than it deserves, it is a good servant and a bad master.
—Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–95) French Dramatist, Novelist
A single idea—the sudden flash of a thought—may be worth a million dollars.
—Robert Collier (1885–1950) American Self-Help Author
Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn’t a God.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile