A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Money ain’t everything.

People like to build their own story about my life. I don’t know if it makes them feel better, or if it makes it okay for them to not like me, but the last thing I grew up as was rich.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

I have rooms full of little dongly things and don’t want any more. Half the little dongly things I’ve got, I don’t even know what gizmo they’re for. More importantly, half the gizmos I’ve got, I don’t know where their little dongly thing is.

People say ‚I want to be rich‘. The question is, ‚Are you willing to do what it takes?‘

We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life.

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source, they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

I don’t throw lavish parties or nothing like that – I just want a bed and a TV.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

Everybody could be an entrepreneur, but very few will become very rich entrepreneurs.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

God wants to bless us where we are.

The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.

This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

I don’t mean to be cocky, but if I’m never on TV again, if I never make another dollar, I am proud. I did what I wanted to do.

Love can do much, but duty more.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

My name is Adam Sandler. I’m not particularly talented. I’m not particularly good-looking. And yet I’m a multi-millionaire.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics – greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

You may be rich, but there is one thing you can’t afford – that is, if you are a good sort – you can’t afford to spend money on your own luxuries while there are people around you wanting the necessaries of life.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

I’m living a dream I never want to wake up from.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

My work and my family are very important to me.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It’s God’s will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.