Introduction

• I’ve loved quotes for a long time and have been collecting quotes that have made an impression on me for at least the last 5 years. I agree with Adam Grant when he said of quotes and aphorisms, “they’re memorable and They give meaning and direction. They spur new thoughts or new actions—or remind us to revisit old ones.”
• The quotes we love and remember are those that we feel speak directly to us, they transcend the individual context in which we see them and provide us a nugget of insight of knowledge we can take forward and apply more broadly to other aspects of our lives.
• The construction of the quote also plays a big part on which quotes last for generations while others, which have the same core message or meaning, are quickly forgotten. For example, a study in 2000 found that people preferred rhyming quotes.
• While I’ve been collecting quotes for a number of years, it wasn’t until recently that I decided to organise them into different themes. The primary driver for doing this was I realised that because my list was so long there were quotes which I’d forgotten about, but when I rediscovered them still strongly resonated with me. Therefore, I thought that grouping the quotes into themes would (a) give me the opportunity to revisit all the quotes I’d captured and (b) help me find the ‘right’ quote I need depending on the motivation, meaning and direction I need in a particular moment.
• After a lot of thinking and testing different ways to categorise the quotes, I came up with the following 7 themes. You won’t be surprised that these themes align closely – although not directly – with the topics of this blog.
  1. To Live A Good Life
  2. Success
  3. Health & Nutrition
  4. Investing & Money
  5. Appreciation & Acceptance
  6. Action & Ownership
  7. Miscellaneous

• I will post a blog on each of the above themes in a 7 part series on ‘My Favourite Quotes’. This is the fourth blog post in this series focused on ‘Investing & Money’. For the rest of the posts in the series, please click on the relevant hyperlink above. There is no requirement to read the series in order, just dive into the area which appeals most to you right now.
• You’ll notice when reading the series that each theme has a number of topics, this helps me, and will hopefully help you, find the quotes which best apply to what you’re searching for.
• There is no particular order to the quotes within the themes or topics, I considered ranking the quotes within topics but realised that would be an impossible task. For me, it’s about having a catalogue of quotes available to support me, different quotes will be more applicable in some moments than others.
• I am very aware of how often quotes are misattributed. It’s almost as if when people are in doubt of the attribution of a quote, they assign it to Einstein, Twain, Shakespeare or Edison. I have done my best to attribute quotes correctly, however I cannot be 100% certain, so I apologise in advance of any misattributions.
• I hope you find this series useful, and as a collector of quotations, please include any quotes you love in the comments!

Top quotes for me right now Investing & Money

Fundamental Money Basics

• ‘Upgrading your car, house, lifestyle, etc. isn’t ‘’rewarding yourself’’ for hard work, it’s creating more work for your future self’ – Collecting Wisdom (On Twitter)
• ‘Profit is made in buying not selling’ – Unknown
• ‘Wealth is just having more cash flow than you need to spend to be happy.’ – Unknown
• ‘Stocks are the things to own over time. Productivity will increase and stocks will increase with it. There are only a few things you can do wrong. One is to buy or sell at the wrong time. Paying high fees is the other way to get killed: the best way to avoid both of these is to buy a low-cost index fund, and buy it over time. Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy, but don’t think you can outsmart the market.’ – Warren Buffett

Others Behaviour

• ‘The people who made the money during the Gold Rush were not the people digging but the people selling the tools’ – Dane Maxwell
• ‘Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.’ John Maynard Keynes
• ‘The natural tendency with fools is to lower yourself to their level. They annoy you, get under your skin, and draw you into a battle…You simply waste valuable time and emotional energy.’ – Robert Greene
• ‘If you want something, you first need to give it’ – Unknown

Judgement & Evaluating your decisions

• ‘…A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.’ – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• ‘Investment isn’t about selecting “good investments”, it’s about the process of investment. “Good investments” only come with hindsight’ – Todd Tressider
• “You can’t judge the quality of decision from the outcome, especially in the short term” – Howard Marks
• ‘Know what you own, and know why you own it.’ – Peter Lynch
• ‘The four most dangerous words in investing are: “this time it’s different.”’ – Sir John Templeton

Time is your Friend

• ‘A million seconds is 11 days, A billion seconds is 31 years’ – Unknown
• ‘Always observe the First Law of Gold.  Never spend more than 9/10 of what you earn each month, so you’ll always be increasing your wealth.’ – George S. Clason
• ‘Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.’ – Paul Samuelson
• ‘Invest for the long haul. Don’t get too greedy and don’t get too scared.’ – Shelby M.C. Davis

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