Quotes from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Whatever your income, always live below your means.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Good health, longevity, happiness, a loving family, self-reliance, fine friends … if you [have] five, you’re a rich man….”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“I am not impressed with what people own. But I’m impressed with what they achieve. I’m proud to be a physician. Always strive to be the best in your field…. Don’t chase money. If you are the best in your field, money will find you.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Wealth is more often the result of a lifestyle of hard work, perseverance, planning, and, most of all, self-discipline.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Many people who live in expensive homes and drive luxury cars do not actually have much wealth. Then, we discovered something even odder: Many people who have a great deal of wealth do not even live in upscale neighborhoods.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“It’s easier to accumulate wealth if you don’t live in a high-status neighborhood.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“One of the reasons that millionaires are economically successful is that they think differently.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“If you’re not yet wealthy but want to be someday, never purchase a home that requires a mortgage that is more than twice your household’s total annual realized income.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“If your goal is to become financially secure, you’ll likely attain it…. But if your motive is to make money to spend money on the good life,… you’re never gonna make it.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Money should never change one’s values…. Making money is only a report card. It’s a way to tell how you’re doing.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Great offense and poor defense translate into under accumulation of wealth.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Be tough … life is. In other words, there is no promise of a rose garden.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“The foundation stone of wealth accumulation is defense, and this defense should be anchored by budgeting and planning.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“it matters less how much more you make than what you do with what you already have.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Have you ever noticed those people whom you see jogging day after day? They are the ones who seem not to need to jog. But that’s why they are fit. Those who are wealthy work at staying financially fit. But those who are not financially fit do little to change their status.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“To build wealth, minimize your realized (taxable) income and maximize your unrealized income (wealth/capital appreciation without a cash flow).”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“His view of millionaires is shared by most people who are not wealthy. They think millionaires own expensive clothes, watches, and other status artifacts. We have found this is not the case.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“it is very difficult for a married couple to accumulate wealth if one is a spendthrift. A household divided in its financial orientation is unlikely to accumulate significant wealth.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“How can well-educated, high-income people be so naive about money? Because being a well-educated, high-income earner does not automatically translate into financial independence. It takes planning and sacrificing.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“The “some college,” “four-year college graduate,” and “no college” types who have high incomes often had a head start on many well-educated workers.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Most people will never become wealthy in one generation if they are married to people who are wasteful. A couple cannot accumulate wealth if one of its members is a hyperconsumer.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Financially independent people are happier than those in their same income/age cohort who are not financially secure.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Allocating time and money in the pursuit of looking superior often has a predictable outcome: inferior economic achievement. What are three words that profile the affluent? FRUGAL FRUGAL FRUGAL”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“It’s amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it. You’ll be surprised how many sales calls you can make when you have no alternative except to succeed.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Wealth is not the same as income. If you make a good income each year and spend it all, you are not getting wealthier. You are just living high. Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“What if he had taken full advantage of the tax-advantaged benefit from the time he was first employed? Today he would be a millionaire. Instead, he is on the perpetual earn-and-consume treadmill.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“If you make a good income each year and spend it all, you are not getting wealthier. You are just living high. Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“Victor wants his children to become physicians, lawyers, accountants, executives, and so on. But in so encouraging them, Victor essentially discourages his children from becoming entrepreneurs. He unknowingly encourages them to postpone their entry into the labor market. And, of course, he encourages them to reject his lifestyle of thrift and a self-imposed environment of scarcity.”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

“our youth are told that buying expensive items is normal behavior for affluent people. They are led to believe that the wealthy have a high-consumption lifestyle. They learn that hyperspending is the main reward for becoming affluent in America. Why”
― quote from The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

Popular quotes

“Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue. She still loved Trahearne, still maintained her secret fidelity as if it were a miniature Japanese pine, as tiny and perfect as a porcelain cup, lost in the dark and tangled corner of a once-formal garden gone finally to seed.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss

“Vorsichtshalber haben sie das Etikett 'Kapitalismus' ersetzt durch solche, auf denen 'freie Marktwirtschaft' und 'Konsumkultur' steht, nur roch das immer noch zu sehr nach Hund-frisst-Hund, nach allzu vielen Verlierern und maßlos abrahmenden Gewinnern. Wenn man die Hunde aber isch nicht miteinander balgen lässt, dann liegen sie den ganzen Tag im Zwinger und pennen. Im Grund besteht das Problem darin, dass die Gesellschaft anständig zu sein versucht, und mit Anstand ist gegen die menschliche Natur nichts auszurichten. Nicht das Geringste. Wir sollten alle wieder Jäger und Sammler werden, dann hätten wir eine hundertprozentige Beschäftigungsquote und ein gesundes Magenknurren.”
― John Updike, quote from Terrorist

“What makes a man a man are his deeds, his responsibilities, and his reactions... These things are also what makes a man a monster.”
― Shannon Delany, quote from 13 to Life

“HOW ODDLY SITUATED a man is apt to find himself at age thirty-eight! His youth belongs to the distant past. Yet the period of memory beginning with the end of youth and extending to the present has left him not a single vivid impression.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from Runaway Horses

“Moses Never Closes was something folks counted on. It was a certain place in an uncertain world. Folks wanted it to stay the way it was, because once you change one part of a thing, all the other parts begin to shift, and pretty soon, you just don’t know what’s what anymore.”
― Jenny Wingfield, quote from The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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