Quotes about money

11 genuine quotes about money, by Ravikant, Epicurus and Anonymous, from works including How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) and The House of the Dead. Among the speakers: the narrator and Nivi. Some are a character speaking, not the author: each entry says who speaks, and to whom. 6 more quotes on money circulate under these names but are not their words as shared; they are listed at the end.

  1. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

    Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891), The paragraph beginning “With the abolition of private property, then”, about a third of the way in.

  2. Let a young man in his desperation go out and hunt. If he kills the elephant, his poverty ends. If the elephant kills him, his poverty ends.

    Anonymous, Oyekan Owomoyela, The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, electronic edition, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, part 4; the full collection is Owomoyela, Yoruba Proverbs (University of Nebraska Press, 2005), Yoruba proverb (Nigeria).

  3. Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom.

    Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead (1862), Part 1, chapter 1 (“The House of the Dead”), said by the narrator.

  4. Nature’s wealth at once has its bounds and is easy to procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.

    Epicurus, Principal Doctrines (270 BC), Principal Doctrines 15 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.144); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925, as Sovran Maxims.

  5. Again, we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it …

    Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (270 BC), letter to Menoeceus, section 130 (Diogenes Laertius, Lives X.130); translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.

  6. I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.

    Marilyn Monroe, Pete Martin, The New Marilyn Monroe, part one, The Saturday Evening Post, 5 May 1956; republished by the magazine in April 2016, Pete Martin, The New Marilyn Monroe, part one, 5 May 1956; anecdote from a member of the Fox legal staff.

  7. Earn with your mind, not your time.

    Naval Ravikant, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (2020), “Find a Position of Leverage”, displayed aphorism before the real-estate example (online edition).

  8. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep.

    Naval Ravikant, How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) (2018), “Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status”, nav.al/rich.

  9. When you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place.

    Naval Ravikant, How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) (2018), “A Calm Mind, a Fit Body, a House Full of Love” (Nivi reading the last tweet), nav.al/rich, said by Nivi.

  10. You’re not going to get rich renting out your time.

    Naval Ravikant, How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) (2018), “You Won’t Get Rich Renting Out Your Time” (Nivi reading the tweet), nav.al/rich.

  11. Riches are slaves in the house of a wise man, but masters in that of a fool.

    Seneca the Younger, On the Happy Life (58), Chapter 26, section 1 (De Vita Beata 26.1).

Check a quote about money

Shared under these names, but not theirs as shared

  1. Buy when there’s blood in the streets.

    Not found. Credited to Bernard Baruch. No primary source establishes this as Baruch’s saying. The proverb predates its documented 1980 credit to him, and its original speaker remains uncertain.

  2. When a shoeshine boy knows as much as I do about the stock market, it’s time to get out.

    Not found. Credited to Bernard Baruch. Told first of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1959); Baruch’s memoir mentions the shoeshine boy but not as his signal.

  3. We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.

    Misattributed. Credited to Chuck Palahniuk. The wording is misattributed to Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Its older formulation is traced to Robert Quillen in 1928; the exact modern sentence’s author has not been established.

  4. The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

    Misattributed. Credited to Marcus Tullius Cicero. A modern adaptation of a passage in Taylor Caldwell’s 1965 historical novel, not a documented statement by Cicero; the familiar wording has been altered in circulation.

  5. Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.

    Not found. Credited to Albert Einstein. No authenticated Einstein source is known. The comparison was already in an unsigned 1925 advertisement; the Einstein credit found by Quote Investigator dates to 1988.

  6. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back again when it begins to rain.

    Not found. Credited to Robert Frost. The Frost credit is unverified. A related banking joke appeared in 1905, and a fuller form circulated anonymously by 1930; a 1949 quotation dictionary later credited Frost without establishing his authorship.

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