Throughout history, money has been the subject of many pithy comments from famous personalities. Everyone from artists and authors, to politicians and philosophers, seem keen to offer their advice distilled into a clever quip. Sometimes they make us laugh, sometimes they make us stop and think and sometimes they may even open our minds to a new understanding of money.
Here we have put together our list of the most entertaining and enlightening maxims that may just inspire you to change your thinking… or at the very least, give you a chuckle.
Wisdom in their wit
Money and its relationship to happiness has fascinated many a famous raconteur. This first collection of sayings may give you a giggle, but can also offer an insight into how our attitude to money may sometimes need a shake-up.
“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.” – Oscar Wilde
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” – Oscar Wilde
“Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus.” – Françoise Sagan
“Lack of money is the root of all evil.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had only $48 million.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
On a more serious note …
Some great thinkers of yesteryear and more modern times have offered their ruminations on how to treat money in this collection:
“It is better to go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.” – Benjamin Franklin
“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
So what do the real experts say?
Perhaps the pronouncements we should take most notice of are from those who have proven their own success and who live by their own advice.
“Investing should be like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement…go to Las Vegas.” – Nobel Memorial Prize winning economist, Paul Samuelson
“If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.” – Funds management guru and philanthropist, George Soros
Arguably the most quoted and most respected of all investment experts is fund management doyen, Warren Buffett. Here are a few of his most notable gems:
“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years.”
“The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.”
“Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.”
And finally …
Look to the famous formula provided by Charles Dickens:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”
What rules have you found to be most profound when it comes to money? Share your thoughts below.
(Feature image: Yuri Gripas / AFP)
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