Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more.
My message to anybody with money is, I mean what are you gonna do, stick it all in your casket? I mean, why not enjoy the joy of philanthropy?
People get nickled and dimed on stupid stuff all day long. They shop based on convenience, waste money on lottery tickets and overpriced snacks, interest on credit cards, bank fees, etc. When the average person saves money on a purchase, they often view it as having more money to spend on other things. If you understand wealth, you look at it differently: You paid dearly for the money earned as direct income.
...wealth has a certain momentum to it. It’s hard to get things going, but if you develop the right habits and spend less than you earn, your money will grow over time. Pennies saved become dimes, dimes become dollars, etc. As it grows, your money will start to work for you, instead of you working so hard for money.
Making millions of dollars is like breeding rabbits. It's much easier when you start with two.
To be sure, you will work hard in order to get rich, and the harder and smarter you work, the better your chances. As my dad would explain, "It's okay to work eight hours a day for someone else. Just work eight hours a day for yourself too... and twelve hours a day on the weekends." And that's exactly what he did, all his life.
If you have millions of dollars it changes your lifestyle, and anyone who says differently is talking bullshit. I don’t need to work, from a standard of living point of view, but I do, you know. I work every day and on weekends and I haven’t taken a vacation for years.
Some people are foolish enough to imagine that wealth, power, and fame satisfy our hearts: but they never do, unless they are used to create and distribute happiness in the world.
...people make decisions assuming that more income, comfort, and positional goods will make them happier, but they fail to recognize that adaptation and social comparison will come into play and raise their aspirations to about the same extent as their actual gains, which leaves them feeling no happier than before.
That's the trouble with being me. At this point, nobody gives a damn what my problem is. I could literally have a tumor on the side of my head and they'd be like, 'Yeah, big deal. I'd eat a tumor every morning for the kinda money you're pulling down.'
No. It’s not fair that we have so much wealth when billions of others have so little. And it’s not fair that our wealth opens doors that are closed to most people. ... But there is nothing secret about our objectives as a foundation. We are committed to being open about what we fund and what the results have been. ... We do this work, and use whatever influence we have, to help as many people as possible and to advance equity around the world.
The world is full of very happy septic-tank cleaners and miserable investment bankers.
Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.
For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses.
So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.
Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.
Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you.
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
Turn money into time – especially important for people with kids.
Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
But you already know how difficult and costly it can be trying to make time for vacations. However, taking time to make lasting memories with the ones that you love is vital to living a fulfilled life. It’s not the amount you can afford to spend – or even the health of your bank account – that determines your wealth. It’s the magic moments that you create and the gratitude you cultivate that determines your wealth.
Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.
Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time. I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.
I still believe in the philosophy - FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago - that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.
My kids are going to carve out their own place in this world, and they know I'm for them whatever they want to do. But setting up heirs with a lifetime supply of food stamps just because they came out of the right womb can be harmful for them and is an antisocial act. The perfect amount to leave children is enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.
I am also lucky that my philanthropic philosophy has been enthusiastically embraced – and widened – by both of my wives. Neither I, Susie Sr. nor Astrid, who succeeded her, believed in dynastic wealth. Instead, we shared a view that equal opportunity should begin at birth and extreme “look-at-me” styles of living should be legal but not admirable.
Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden...Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
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.
Diligent accumulation of personal wealth is not inherently ungodly so long as it is complemented by equally diligent distribution of personal wealth.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more.
Missing Reference