Winning at money is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. Most of us know what to do, but we just don’t do it.
— Dave Ramsey, Total Money Makeover

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessul men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will [...]

Having financial troubles and being in debt can be so shameful, but tell someone about it.  Have someone you can share with and don’t keep it all bottled in.  Everyone needs someone to be there when you are down and out.  It could be a friend, a spouse, message board buddies, or a support group.  [...]

Money itself is a teacher.  You learn the lessons that tell you who you are in many ways — through relationships, through school and work, through what gives you pleasure and pain, by trying to make your dreams come true.  But one of the primary ways you learn who you are is through your money: [...]

Motherhood is now the single-best indicator that an unmarried middle-class woman will end up bankrupt.  In the world of financial devastation, there are two groups of people: single mothers and others.
— Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap

Without knowing where you are on the map, you won’t know whether to turn left or right going out the door, no matter how clear your goal.  It’s a real challenge to acknowledge consciously the total inventory of what you’ve created in your work and your life.
— David Allen, Ready for Anything

Thought is useful when it motivates for action, and a hindrance when it substitutes for action.
— Bill Raeder

Discipline does not mean suppression and control, nor is it adjustment to a pattern or ideology.  It means the mind sees “what is” and learns from “what is.”
— J. Krishnamurti

Why do people persist in an unsatisfying [situation], unwilling either to work toward solutions or end it and move on?  It’s because they know that changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they’re already experiencing.  It’s like the old proverbs say:  “Better [...]

A budget simply records how much money is coming in and where it is going out.  A budget makes no judgment; it’s a tool that tells the truth.  And once you learn how to use a budget well, it becomes an instrument that helps deliver your lifelong dreams.  A budget is a key tool in [...]

The whole point of building a larger net worth is to provide the wherewithal for living expenses while you do what you most want to do.
— George Kinder, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity

One of the best ways to procrastinate and deflate real motivation is to create big goals that are interpreted as “long term.”  As soon as we set these goals or identify these kinds of projects, we tend to feel smug and self-congratulatory and pseudocomplete about them, just because we’ve committed to them, and our drive [...]

All too often, the security of a mediocre present is more comfortable than the adventure of trying to be more in the future.  So many people get to the end of their lives wondering what could have been — don’t let this happen to you.
— Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation.  It is common sense to take a method and try it:  If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.  But above all, try something.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, May 22, 1932

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.  Comes into us at midnight very clean.  It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.  It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.
— John Wayne