149 Powerful Personal Finance Quotes

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The thing that I enjoy most about personal finance is that it is personal.

Your experience with money is different from mine based on many factors.

The beauty here is this allows us to learn from each other.

We might read the same thing, but because of our different mindset about money, we take something different away.

Because I love hearing about other people’s relationship and ideas about money, I compiled this list of personal finance quotes.

By taking the time to read through these sayings, you can learn so much about money and building wealth.

146 Personal Finance Quotes

Quotes About Financial Wisdom

personal-finance-quotes

#1. “A lot of people go into debt just to keep up with those who already are.” – Unknown

#2. “A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.” – Henry Kravis

#3. “Unexpected money is a delight. The same sum is a bitterness when you expected more.” – Mark Twain

#4. “At a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts.” – Aristotle Onassis

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#5. “You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.” – Dave Ramsey

#6. “At the end of the day, if you’re wasting your time by not investing in yourself, you’re going to waste away and that would be the greatest waste of all.” – Richie Norton

#7. “Bad debt is sacrificing your future day needs for your present day desires.” – Suze Orman

#8. “Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” – Warren Buffett

#9. “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

#10. “If plan A fails, remember there are 25 more letters.” – Chris Guillebeau

#11. “You can’t get out of debt while keeping the same lifestyle that got you there.” – Dave Ramsey

Money can buy some things to create happiness, but it can never buy happiness

#12. “Money can buy some things to create happiness, but it can never buy happiness.” – Ellen Barrier

#13. “Seek advice on risk from the wealthy who still take risks, not friends who dare nothing more than a football bet.” – J. Paul Getty

#14. “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

#15. “You can’t be in debt and win. It doesn’t work.” – Dave Ramsey

#16. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

#17. “If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough.” – Vicki Robin

#18. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

#19. “If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.” – Edmund Burke

#20. “Wanting less is probably a better blessing than having more.” – Mary Ellen Edmund

#21. “If you are not successful, that means you’re not making enough mistakes.” – Robert Kiyosaki

#22. “It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – J.K. Rowling

#23. “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson

Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time

#24. “Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” – Jim Rohn

#25. “If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents. Value what you know and start charging for it.” – Kim Garst

#26. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

#27. “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” – Seneca

#28. “You can only fix a financial problem by fixing yourself.” – Nancy Levin

#29. “Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. They quit on one yard line. They give up the at last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” – Henry Ross Perot

#30. “Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.” – Zig Ziglar

#31. “The art is not in making money, but in keeping it.” – Proverb

#32. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something. Your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do

#33. “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

Personal Finance Quotes

#34. “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” – David Brinkley

#35. “There were two sets of rules when it comes to money. One set of rules for the people who work for money and another set of rules for the rich who print money.” – Robert Kiyosaki

#36. “Don’t let pride keep you in debt. A big house and a fancy car aren’t worth a lifetime of bondage.” – Dave Ramsey

#37. “The most important word in the world of money is cash flow. The second most important word is leverage.” – Rich Dad

A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart

#38. “A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.” – Jonathan Swift

#39. “It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford

#40. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

#41. “A winning strategy must include losing.” – Rich Dad

#42. “Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.” – Nathan W. Morris

#43. “There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.” – Marlene Dietrich

#44. “It’s not your salary that makes you rich, it’s your spending habits.” – Charles Jaffe

#45. “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.” – Roger Babson

#46. “Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.” – Robert Kiyosaki

#47. “Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.” – Henry Ford

#48. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi

If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it

#49. “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it!” – Jonathan Winters

#50. “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

#51. “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne

#52. “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

#53. “Getting out and staying out of debt is key. Debt is the biggest barrier, a parasite to wealth.” – Ann Wilson

#54. “It’s not the situation, but whether we react or respond to the situation that’s important.” – Zig Ziglar

#55. “Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.” – Benjamin Franklin

#56. “Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end, you are sure to succeed.” – Abraham Lincoln

#57. “It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.” – David Feherty

#58. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

#59. “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

#60. “Just because you can afford the payments doesn’t mean you can afford the item.” – Unknown

#61. “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

#62. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

#63. “Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” – Norman Vincent Peale

#64. “Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” – James W. Frick

#65. “Debt creates stress, stress creates behaviors that don’t lead to happiness.” – Seth Godin

#66. “Frugality includes all the other virtues.” – Cicero

#67. “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie

#68. “If you took our top fifteen decisions out, we’d have a pretty average record. It wasn’t hyperactivity, but a hell of a lot of patience. You stuck to your principles and when opportunities came along, you pounced on them with vigor.” – Charlie Munger

#69. “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

If you're saving, you're succeeding

#70. “If you’re saving, you’re succeeding.” – Steve Burkholder

Quotes About Money

#71. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

#72. “The longer you’re not taking action the more money you’re losing.” – Carrie Wilkerson

#73. “Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

#74. “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 Buffett

#75. “Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” – Ayn Rand

#76. “Never spend your money before you have it.” – Thomas Jefferson

#77. “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” – Joe Biden

#78. “Fortune sides with him who dares.” – Virgil

#79. “If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn’t be in stocks.” – John Bogle

#80. “The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.” – Andrew Carnegie

The most beautiful things are not associated with money. They are memories and moments. If you don't celebrate those, they can pass you by

#81. “The most beautiful things are not associated with money. They are memories and moments. If you don’t celebrate those, they can pass you by.” – Alec Wek

#82. “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

#83. “To acquire money requires valor, to keep money requires prudence, and to spend money well is an art.” – Berthold Auerbach

#84. “Many folks think they aren’t good at earning money, when what they don’t know is how to use it.” – Frank A. Clark

#85. “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

#86. “Every day 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

#87. “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

#88. “The person who doesn’t know where his next dollar is coming from usually doesn’t know where his last dollar went.” – Unknown

#89. “If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.” – Billy Graham

#90. “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

#91. “I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.” – Pablo Picasso

#92. “The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.” – Ben Graham

#93. “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

#94. “Few men have virtue enough to withstand the highest bidder.” – George Washington

#95. “The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.” – Warren Buffett

#96. “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

#97. “The most important factor to growing your financial stability isn’t your income. Rather, your success is much more related to how well you keep your eye on the ball. Organize your finances around the principles of financial stability. Aim for that goal, and over time you will find many unexpected ways to actually put money aside.” – Erik Wecks

#98. “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

#99. “I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong. I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.” – George Soros

He who loses money, loses much. He who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith, loses all

#100. “He who loses money, loses much. He who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith, loses all.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Funny Money Quotes

#101. “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” – P.T. Barnum

#102. “It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

#103. “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” – Yogi Berra

#104. “How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case.” – Robert G. Allen

#105. “I made my money the old-fashioned way. I was very nice to a wealthy relative right before he died.”  – Malcolm Forbes

#106. “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein

#107. “There comes a point when you stand in the rain and you get so wet, you can’t get any wetter.” – Unknown

#108. “Wealth is like sea-water. The more we drink, the thirstier we become. And the same is true of fame.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

#109. “The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” – Phillip Fisher

#110. “Don’t buy things you can’t afford with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like.” – Dave Ramsey

Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas

#111. “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

#112. “A simple fact that is hard to learn is that the time to save money is when you have some.” – Joe Moore

#113. “I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.” – Steve Martin

#114. “Money often costs too much.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

#115. “My old father used to have a saying. If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.” – Abraham Lincoln

#116. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon

#117. “If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.” – George Bernard Shaw

#118. “The best way to rob a bank is to own one.” – Robert Kiyosaki

#119. “Too many people spend money they earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people that they don’t like.” – Will Rogers

#120. “If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.” – J. Paul Getty

#121. “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

#122. “The four most expensive words in the English language are, ‘This time it’s different.'” – Sir John Templeton

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket

#123. “The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.” – Will Rogers

Building Wealth Quotes

#124. “Wealth is not limited, rather it grows. It grows whenever man exerts energy.” – Abhishek Kumar

#125. “My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty

#126. “It is better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you will drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffett

#127. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

#128. “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” – Epictetus

#129. “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

#130. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” – Benjamin Franklin

#131. “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

#132. “Wealth is only a benefit of the game of money. If you win, the money will be there.” – J. Paul Getty

#133. “No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself.” – Plato

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

#134. “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

#135.“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” – Henry David Thoreau

#136. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump

#137. “Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.” – Erich Fromm

#138. “Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.” – Benjamin Franklin

#139. “Either you create million excuses or you create million rupees. But you cannot create both.” – Abhishek Kumar

#140. “Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.” – Ingvar Kamprad

#141. “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

#142. “The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” – Anonymous

#143. “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” – Henry David Thoreau

#144. “Try to save something while your salary is small. It’s impossible to save after you begin to earn more.” – Jack Benny

#145. “What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” – Julia Cameron

#146. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

#147.“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.” – Ben Franklin

#148. “Wealth is when small efforts produce big results. Poverty is when big efforts produce small results.” – Unknown

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

#149. “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

Final Thoughts

There are my favorite quotes about personal finance.

I hope you enjoyed reading them and that you learned something.

Whatever it is you did learn, now is the time to take action and start improving your financial life.

These quotes are a good start and money affirmations help as well.

You won’t turn things completely around overnight.

By be taking the first step, you will see improvement in time.

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