Money quotes

There are some great quotes out there about money. I read a really funny quote the other day: "Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be". - Rita Rudner

That quote is obviously meant as a joke, but it made me think about other quotes that I have come across concerning money, which I still think about.

Many years ago at a company I worked for, one of the managers emailed everyone this quote which I have never forgotten: "Chase money and it will run away. Chase success and money will follow". In later years I have found this quote to be false, and saw via my own experiences that seeking money and using good personal financial sense such as budgeting is the definite way forward. You can be successful all of your life and have no money to show for it. I made up my own version of this quote, which is: "Chase money, and you will catch money".

A quote I read in the bible is "to he that hath much, even more shall be given. To he that hath little, even that little shall be taken away". This basically says that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This was part of the story about talents, where god gave 2 people different amounts, and the one who had more, made more, but the one who had less became jealous and did not try, so ended up with nothing. Life is not fair, and whatever you are given, you have to keep working it until you start to win. In the song Soul Man, James Brown says "I got what I got the hard way, and I'll make it better, each and every day". Keep feeding your financial spark until it becomes a furnace.

Warren Buffett currently the richest man in the world said: "Making money is like a snowball rolling down a hill". He even called his recent biography The Snowball. Basically, you grow your finances like snow rolling down a hill. You start off with a little bit at first, and you keep rolling, eventually you get richer and richer.

You can go your whole life being competent, experienced and skillful at your job, but end up embarrassed, humiliated and poor, and having to beg from people who have money. The book: The Richest Man in Babylon, in the very first chapter has the skilled, experienced, but poor, chariot maker Bansir saying "I finally realise why we never found any wealth, it is because we never sought it". That quote is actually the inspiration behind this entire blog.