161 Inspiring Quotes on Money and Wealth

Making money and creating wealth is one of my weakest areas – knowledge wise – when it comes to self-improvement.

So I thought it would be useful for me – and hopefully for you too – to put together a list of some of the best quotes on wealth and money that I have come across.

I especially like the ones by William A. Ward, Benjamin Franklin, Gandhi and Henry Ford.

This is 161 motivating and sometimes funny, sometimes thought-provoking quotes on money and wealth from the past few thousands of years.

I hope you’ll find them as helpful as I have.

And if you want more inspiration then have a look at this post filled with quotes to help you through the midweek slump and this one with quotes on inner peace.

Inspiring Quotes on Money and Wealth

“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

“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

“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shuts down for ten years.”
Warren Buffett

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

“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”
Jim Rohn

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

“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

“Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.”
Daniel Kahneman

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”
Zig Ziglar

“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

“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

“Making money is a common sense. It’s not rocket science. But unfortunately, when it comes to money, common sense is uncommon.”
Robert Kiyosaki

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

“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 is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.”
Albert Camus

“The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

“Money is like muck—not good unless it be spread.”
Francis Bacon

“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 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

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

“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

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

“When a fellow says it ain’t the money but the principle of the thing, it’s the money.”
Artemus Ward

“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

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

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

“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

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

“Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience.”
P.T Barnum

“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”
Thomas Jefferson

“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

“Money may not buy happiness, but I’d rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus.”
Françoise Sagan

“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 had money everyone called me brother.”
Polish proverb

“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

“Earn with your mind, not your time.”
Naval Ravikant

“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”
Miguel de Cervantes

“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

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

“Money often costs too much”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.”
Simone Weil

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

“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.”
Chris Rock

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

“Know what you own, and know why you own it.”
Peter Lynch

“Money isn’t everything…but it ranks right up there with oxygen.”
Rita Davenport

“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

“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

“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.”
Oscar Wilde

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
Jim Rohn

“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

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

“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

“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

“Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
Oprah Winfrey

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

“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

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
Sam Walton

“Success is not the result of making money; earning money is the result of success – and success is in direct proportion to our service.”
Earl Nightingale

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

“Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferraris – I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.”
Charlie Munger

“Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved.”
Bill Gates 

“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

“If you want to get rich, remember that the way to do it is via equity, not salary.”
Sam Altman

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

“There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money.”
Alan Watts

“It’s simple arithmetic: “Your income can grow only to the extent you do”.
T. Harv Eker

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

“Wealth does not make people happy, but positive increases in wealth may.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“99% of all problems can be solved by money — and for the other 1% there’s alcohol.”
Quentin R. Bufogle

“Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.”
Haruki Murakami

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

“The fools in life want things fast and easy — money, success, attention.”
Robert Greene

“It’s amazing how fast later comes when you buy now.”
Milton Berle

“Remember that the only purpose of money is to get you what you want, so think hard about what you value and put it above money.”
Ray Dalio

“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 sign of wealth: No longer needing an alarm clock to wake up.”
Greg Isenberg

“Within certain limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry.”
George Orwell

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

“Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.”
Epictetus

“Money grows on the tree of persistence.”
Japanese proverb

“The more you learn, the more you earn.”
Warren Buffett

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Jim Carrey

“Real wealth is not about money. Real wealth is: not having to go to meetings, not having to spend time with jerks, not being locked into status games, not feeling like you have to say “yes”, not worrying about others claiming your time and energy. Real wealth is about freedom.”
James Clear

Motivational Saving Money Quotes

“Try to save something while your salary is small; it’s impossible to save after you begin to earn more.”
Jack Benny

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

“The rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left.”
Jim Rohn

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

“So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it. They fail to live because they are always preparing to live.”
Alan Watts

“Stop buying things you don’t need, to impress people you don’t even like.”
Suze Orman

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

“It’s easy to say you don’t care about money when you have plenty of it.”
Ransom Riggs

“In the Middle Ages, the rich spent their money carelessly on extravagant luxuries, whereas peasants lived frugally minding every penny. Today, the tables have turned. The rich take great care managing their assets and investments while the less well go into debt buying cars and televisions they don’t really need.”
Yuval Noah Harari

“Money moves from those who do not manage it to those who do.”
Dave Ramsey

“If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.”
Warren Buffett

“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

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

Smart and Insightful Money Quotes

“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

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

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

“Making money isn’t hard in itself… What’s hard is to earn it by doing something worth devoting one’s life to.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“Focus on solving real problems and not on making money. There will be enough takers for your solutions. You will help make the lives of some people better, and money will follow.”
Bhavish Aggarwal

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

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

“Before you can become a millionaire, you must learn to think like one. You must learn how to motivate yourself to counter fear with courage.”
Thomas J. Stanley

“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

“Making money is a hobby that will complement any other hobbies you have, beautifully.”
Scott Alexander

“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

“If you want to be financially free, you need to become a different person than you are today and let go of whatever has held you back in the past.”
Robert Kiyosaki

“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

“Wealth is largely the result of habit.”
John Jacob Astor

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

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
Maya Angelou

“Just because you’re working does not mean you’re making money. That’s two very different things in show business.”
Billy Porter

“A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values.”
Barack Obama

“Rich people believe “I create my life”. Poor people believe “Life happens to me.”
T. Harv Eker

“Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”
Andy Warhol

“Knowledge is power: you hear it all the time but knowledge is not power. It’s only potential power. It only becomes power when we apply it and use it. Somebody who reads a book and doesn’t apply it, they’re at no advantage over someone who’s illiterate. None of it works unless you work. We have to do our part. If knowing is half the battle, action is the second half of the battle.”
Jim Kwik

“Children are sponges – they are going to absorb whatever is around them, so we need to be intentional about what surrounds them.”
Dave Ramsey

“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

“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”
Margaret Bonanno

“Fortune sides with him who dares.”
Virgil

“You either master money, or, on some level, money masters you.”
Tony Robbins

Short Money and Personal Finance Quotes

“Success is not how many zeroes your bank account has. It’s about making the most of the life you have.“
Suze Orman

“Financial freedom is available to those who learn about it and work for it.”
Robert Kiyosaki

“The only point in making money is, you can tell some big shot where to go.”
Humphrey Bogart

“Frugality includes all the other virtues.”
Cicero

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

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

“If you are in the world of business, that means you are in the business of making money.”
Stephen A. Smith

“All the money in the world can’t buy you back good health.”
Reba McEntire

“Buy land. They’re not making it anymore.”
Mark Twain

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

“Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.”
Josh Billings

“A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.”
Dave Ramsey

“Making money is easy. It is. The difficult thing in life is not making it; it’s keeping it.”
John McAfee

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

“Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack.”
Jack Bogle

“Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.”
Chuck Palahniuk

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

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
Dolly Parton

“Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.”
Warren Buffett

“Money is not everything, but it is right up there with oxygen.”
Zig Ziglar

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
Anne Frank

“Money, like emotions, is something you must control to keep your life on the right track.”
Natasha Munson

“The best way to look stylish on a budget is to try second-hand, bargain hunting, and vintage.”
Orlando Bloom

“Spending money is much more difficult than making money.”
Jack Ma

“The key to making money is to stay invested.”
Suze Orman

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

“Always plan ahead: it wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”
Richard Cushing

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

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.”
Will Rogers

“The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.”
Charles Kuralt

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

“Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.”
Napoleon Hill