Money Quotes and Sayings

Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. See our disclosure for more info.

Looking for a money mindset? These money quotes are full of different perspectives on riches, wealth, and the virtues and pitfalls of each.

Money is a big part of life no matter where you live and what you do. Obviously we need it to buy things and live our daily lives. But what else does money mean to us?

People have placed significance on money for thousands of years due to its importance to people, countries, and cultures. From the Bible to current music, there are conflicting sayings about money everywhere.

So here are the best money quotes to give you a better understanding of cash and how to use it for our highest good.

Top 10 Money Quotes

The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

P.T. Barnum
HL Hunt quote "Money is just a way of keeping score"Pin
“Money is just a way of keeping score.” – H.L. Hunt

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

Ransom Riggs

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

Paul Newman

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

George Bernard Shaw

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

Jonathan Swift
Don Marquis quote "There is nothing so habit-forming as money"Pin
“There is nothing so habit-forming as money.” – Don Marquis

I’d rather lose my own money than someone else’s.

Dean Kamen

Money makes the world go round; however, happiness greases the axle. Without this lubricant, life will seize.

Paul Van Der Merwe

Short Money Quotes

Money is like muck—not good unless it be spread.

Francis Bacon

Money: power at its most liquid.

Mason Cooley

Money often costs too much.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adam Smith quote "All money is a matter of belief"Pin
“All money is a matter of belief.” – Adam Smith

Money equals freedom.

Kevin O’Leary

Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.

Ayn Rand

Money can’t buy life.

Bob Marley

Money is a kind of poetry.

Wallace Stevens

The American Dream is really money.

Jill Robinson

Time is money.

Bennjamin Franklin
Marsha Sinetar quote "Do what you love and the money will follow"Pin
“Do what you love and the money will follow.” – Marsha Sinetar

Money isn’t everything… but it ranks right up there with oxygen.

Rita Davenport

Money never sleeps, pal.

Michael Douglas, as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

The more you learn, the more you earn.

Warren Buffett

Quotes about Money

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.

Haruki Murakami

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

Berthold Auerbach

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

W. Somerset Maugham

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

Artemus Ward

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

Eleanor Roosevelt

Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

Daniel Kahneman

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

Jim Rohn

It’s all about the money.

Joe Jackson

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

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.

Khalil Gibran

If money was my only motivation, I would organize myself differently.

Placido Domingo

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

Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring value.

John Ralston Saul

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

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Albert Camus

Anytime an athlete tells you it’s not about the money, that means it’s about one thing – the money.

Jim Rome

People who actually have money don’t want to talk about it. They want to talk about everything else.

Curtis Jackson (50-Cent)

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Voltaire

I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.

Shaquille O’Neal

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

Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.

Will Smith
"A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles"Pin
“A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.

Doyle Brunson

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

The fools in life want things fast and easy — money, success, attention.

Robert Greene

Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.

Agatha Christie

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

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

Geroge Orwell

Make Money Quotes

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

Robert Kioysaki

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

Malcolm Forbes

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

To get rich, you have to be making money while you’re asleep.

David Bailey

Spending money is much more difficult than making money.

Jack Ma

Money grows on the tree of persistence.

Japanese Proverb

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

Miguel de Cervantes

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
Naval Ravikant advice "Earn with your mind, not your time"Pin
“Earn with your mind, not your time.” – Naval Ravikant

I don’t care half so much about making money as I do about making my point, and coming out ahead.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

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

It’s simple arithmetic: Your income can grow only to the extent you do.

T. Harv Eker

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 Kioysaki

Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.

John Wooden

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Margaret Thatcher

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Everett Dirksen

I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.

Pablo Picasso

A penny saved is a penny earned.

Benjamin Franklin

Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.

Sydney J. Harris

Money Management Quotes

Many folks think they aren’t good at earning money, when what they don’t know is how to use it.

Frank A. Clark

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 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

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
Jefferson quote "Never spend your money before you have earned it"Pin
“Never spend your money before you have earned it.” – Thomas Jefferson

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

Jack Benny

Stop buying things you don’t need, to impress people you don’t even like.

Suze Orman

Money moves from those who do not manage it to those who do.

Dave Ramsey

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

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

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.

Ben Graham

Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

Andrew Carnegie

Sayings about Money

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

Françoise Sagan

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

Ayn Rand

Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.

Mason Cooley

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
Thomas Tusser quote "A fool and his money are soon parted"Pin
“A fool and his money are soon parted.” – Thomas Tusser

A fool and his money get a lot of publicity.

Al Bernstein

What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

Michael Douglas, as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street

A fool and his money never should have gotten together in the first place.

Michael Douglas, as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2

Money without brains is always dangerous.

Napoleon Hill

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

Simone Weil

You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.

Tennessee Williams

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

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

Quentin R. Bufogle

Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won’t buy the wag of his tail.

Josh Billings

All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

Spike Milligan

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

1 Timothy 6:10, ESV

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Samuel Butler

It’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money

Canada Bill Jones

Anyone who says money is the root of all evil doesn’t f—ing have any.

Ben Affleck, Boiler Room

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

Ayn Rand
Cicero saying "Frugality includes all the other virtues"Pin
“Frugality includes all the other virtues.” – Cicero

Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience.

P.T. Barnum

When I had money everyone called me brother.

Polish Saying

What counts is what you do with your money, not where it came from.

Merton Miller

Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.

David Lee Roth

The greatest power is not money power, but political power.

Walter Annenberg

Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

Henry James

Rich Quotes

Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.

Erich Fromm

There are people who have money and people who are rich.

Coco Chanel

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

Henry David Thoreau

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

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

Jim Rohn

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

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

Sam Altman

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
BC Forbes line "Real riches are the riches possessed inside"Pin
“Real riches are the riches possessed inside.” – B.C. Forbes

It is usually people in the money business, finance, and international trade that are really rich.

Robin Leach

The rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what is left.

Jim Rohn

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

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

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seneca

Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.

Zig Ziglar

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

W.C. Fields

Wealth Quotes

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Henry David Thoreau

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

Benjamin Franklin

Looking for more advice from the man on the $100 bill? Check out our 8 Life Lessons from Benjamin Franklin and see what else you can learn from him today.

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

Edmund Burke

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.

Khalil Gibran

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

Epictetus
William Feather quote "Wealth flows from energy and ideas"Pin
“Wealth flows from energy and ideas.” – William Feather

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 we’d be worth if we lost all our money.

Benjamin Jowett

All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas – not money.

Robert Collier

Land is wealth. Money is a medium of exchange.

D.K. Seale

These wealthy guys – the more they’ve got, the less they’re worth.

Robert Wuhl, as Alexander Knox in Batman

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart.

Theodore Parker

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

Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.

Chris Rock

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

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

Plato

A sign of wealth: No longer needing an alarm clock to wake up.

Greg Isenberg

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

Alan Watts
"Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it"Pin
“Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.” – Benjamin Franklin

Wealth does not make people happy, but positive increases in wealth may.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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

Financial Quotes

Money isn’t always currency or even paper. These financial quotes from robber barons, captains of industry, and financiers explore the role of assets and risk in finance.

From stocks and bonds to banks and commerce, these sayings explore how money goes to work… or not.

The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.

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.

Mahatma Gandhi

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

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

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.

Ben Graham

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

John Bogle

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

Robert G. Allen

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.

John Maynard Keynes

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

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
William Petty quote "Money is the best rule of commerce"Pin
“Money is the best rule of commerce.” – William Petty

It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages.

Henry Ford

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw

The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Philip Fisher

Greed is not a financial issue. It’s a heart issue.

Andy Stanley

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.

Bob Hope

Capital isn’t this pile of money sitting somewhere; it’s an accounting construct.

Bethany McLean

You’re only the boss if you put up your own money.

Damon Dash

Cash Quotes

If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.

Jack London

It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.

Anatole France

Ah, take the cash in hand and waive the rest.

Edward Fitzgerald

Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.

Rita Mae Brown

There’s lots of things that can be solved with cash.

Danny Boyle
Ricardo Salinas Pliego line "In times of crisis, cash is king"Pin
“In times of crisis, cash is king.” – Ricardo Salinas Pliego

Liquidity is a good proxy for relative net worth. You can’t lie about cash, stocks, and bond values.

Mark Cuban

Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.

Rutget Pregman

There’s nothing that will change someone’s moral outlook quicker than cash in large sums.

Larry Flynt

What investors want is growth, margin, and cash.

John L. Flannery

I think cash will be around for a long time.

Ana Patricia Botin

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

Robert Green Ingersoll

If I could only have cash, I know that I would spend very little.

Amanda Eliasch

I’m a bit like the Queen in that I don’t carry much cash.

Richard Branson

There is nothing wrong with a woman encouraging a man’s advances, as long as they are in cash.

Zsa Zsa Gabor

The world needs another vehicle to get people to pay in cash.

Suze Orman

Money is not an aphrodisiac: the desire it may kindle in the female eye is more for the cash than the carrier.

Marya Mannes

I got a wife who likes expensive things, so she takes all the cash.

James Brown
Gregory Nunn advice "Never underestimate the value of cold cash"Pin
“Never underestimate the value of cold cash.” – Gregory Nunn

We can’t control whether we are rewarded for our endeavours, with cash or recognition. It is not up to us how much cash or time we get on Earth, but it is down to us how we spend it.

Julian Baggini

If I had to study and work hard, it would have to have the reward of a lot of cash.

Abbey Clancy

Cash Flow Quotes

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.

James Madison

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.

Oscar Wilde

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

Henry Ford

The three most dreaded words in the English language are ‘negative cash flow’.

David Tang

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

Unknown

I’m a cash flow guy. If it doesn’t make me money today, forget about it.

Robert Kiyosaki

I’ve certainly learnt there’s nothing more important than cash – cash flow issues are one of the biggest causes of company failures.

Peter Jones

The true currency of life is time, not money, and we’ve all got a limited stock of that.

Robert Harris

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

Debt Quotes

Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.

Nathan W. Morris

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.

Norman Vincent Peale
John Dewey saying "No man's credit is as good as his money"Pin
No man’s credit is as good as his money.– John Dewey

Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift… The hangover comes the day after.

Joyce Brothers

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

Joe Moore

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.

Proverbs 22:7, ESV

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The creditor hath a better memory than the debtor.

James Howell

We hope these money quotes give you a new perspective on what wealth and riches are and aren’t. Is it the root of all evil, or a tool for freedom? Is it merely paper and coins, or has modern society given it so much power that it really is more than those?

The decision is yours! Let us know whether these quotes inspired you to earn more, spend more, or save more in the comments below. No matter how you view money, we wish you the best.

Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.