Over 100 Quotes From Black Financial Experts

The financial lessons of 2019-2023 will be profound in terms of building Black wealth or creating Black economic decline. While motivational speeches capture the hearts and imagination of many, financial quotes (shorthand mentoring) provide perspective on how to move in a rapidly evolving economy. Turns out it’s not just about the dollars, these mental narrative shifts are essential if you want to create generational wealth.

As a bonus, you can even underscore any financial quote with an epic soundtrack to the same effect as Deepak Chopra or Les Brown.

There’s a real measurable dollar value that you get from a financial snippet that you can use to set up S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals, budget more efficiently, and invest wisely. These quotes can be timely and familiar. They can also help you learn how to prioritize, develop your purpose, persevere in trying times, and find enjoyment along the way. If you are ready to make the change from paycheck to paycheck, you have to start with a mental reset. This change is the core of financial independence.

The right quote at the right time can change the trajectory of your life. Here are 101 of my favorite quotes on the path to being wealthy, happy, and fulfilled.

Table of Contents

100+ Financial Quotes Inspire By Black Financial Influencers and Massive Community Wealth Builders

25 Motivational Quotes about Long-term Success

“What’s the key to success? The key is, there is no key. Be humble, hungry, and the hardest worker in any room.” – Dwayne the Rock Johnson
“Always be ready to adjust, recalibrate, and stay after it to become better, somehow.” – David Goggins
“The harder you work, the luckier you get’’ – Mike Adenuga
“I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen. A lot of times, an opportunity might fall into your lap, but you have to be ready for that opportunity. You can’t sit there waiting on it. A lot of times you are going to have to get out there and make it happen.” – Spike Lee
“Success is not an accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing.” – Pele
“Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without them, you will never be able to find personal fulfillment, and you will never be able to lead effectively.” – Kenneth Chenault
“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” – Barack Obama
“Discipline is not a dirty word. There is far more freedom and opportunity for creativity and success in enjoying discipline. Years ago someone I very much respect told me the reason they were successful is that they embraced doing what other people resent or are reluctant to do.” – Janice Bryant Howroyd
“The greatest glory in living lies not in falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
“If you approach 100 people for seed capital, 99 of them may say no, you just need that one.” – Dr. William Pickard
“Every minute you spend feeling sorry for yourself is another minute not getting better” – David Goggins
“Progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.” – Barack Obama
“Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.” – Marva Collins
“We can’t control all the variables in our lives. It’s about what we do with opportunities revoked or presented to us that determine how a story ends.” – David Goggins
“You can’t be a hero and a victim at the same time.” – Derek T. Dingle
“The only thing that is impossible is the thing you don’t believe you can do.” – Muhammad Ali
“Failure is not an option. It’s just a step.” – The Rock
“Most wars are won or lost in our own heads.” – David Goggins
“Don’t count the days, Make the days count.” – Muhammed Ali
“Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.” – Cicely Tyson
“If you’re a competitive person, that stays with you. You don’t stop. You always look over your shoulder.” — Magic Johnson
“We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.” – Barack Obama
“Five days a week, I read my goals before I go to sleep and when I wake up. There are 10 goals around health, family, and business with expiration dates, and I update them every six months.” – Daymond John
“Approach building wealth with the same enthusiasm you had when you were spending it away.” – Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez
“Put action to support the intention, don’t say I want to be a millionaire but don’t take the activities to do it.” – Robert F. Smith

Finding Wealth in Freedom through 25 quotes

“If it is Freedom that you seek, then you are in the company of billions of other people.” – Barack Obama
“Freedom is never given; it is won.” – A. Philip Randolph
“If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems.” – Majora Carter
“One of the things that inspired me earlier in my life was actually believe it or not the James Bond novels because as I read them, they took me and transported me into places that I had no idea actually really existed.” – Robert F. Smith
“The struggle for freedom is never-ending.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“You are worthy of love and belonging.” – Brené Brown
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” – Lena Horne
“The most important thing is to never give up.” – Rosa Parks
“Not everyone wants to make the sacrifice in the trade-off to become wealthier, and the first part of that trade-off is savings and investment and time.” – Robert F. Smith
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Shirley Chisholm
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
“Blood, sweat, and respect. The first two you give, the last one you earn” – The Rock
You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.” – David Goggins, author of Can’t Hurt Me
“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” – Barack Obama
“Fight through those problems.” – Robert F. Smith
“You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect.” – Rosalind Brewer
“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” – Mae Jemison
“I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it’s half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me.” – Althea Gibson
“The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.” – Chinua Achebe
“No action is too small when it comes to changing the world… I’m inspired every time I meet an entrepreneur who is succeeding against all odds.” – Cyril Ramaphosa
“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at.” – Jesse Owens
“Never ever chase money. You should chase success because with success money follows.” – Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones
“Life is like business, 20 percent of what happens to you is 80 percent of how you react.” – Daymond John
“Keep going. No matter what.” – Reginald Lewis
“I always make sure I hire people smarter than me.” – Aliko Dangote

Redefing your vision with 25 Quotes

“The first step to financial freedom is to understand your money.” – Jamila White, Money Moves Podcast
“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” – Oprah Winfrey
“You can’t save what you don’t know you have.” – Kiersten Warren, His & Her Money Podcast
“The best way to make more money is to increase your skills and knowledge.” – Chris Hogan, The Chris Hogan Show
“We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.” – Barack Obama
“I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That’s what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s from being bright all the time and trying to be brighter.” – Jay-Z
“Investing is the key to building wealth.” – Bola Sokunbi, Her First $100K Podcast
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.” – Tiffany Aliche, The Budgetista
“Have a vision. Be demanding.” – Colin Powell
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker T. Washington
“Financial freedom is not about being rich, it’s about being in control of your money.” – Michelle Singletary, The Money Girl Podcast
“The best way to get out of debt is to make a plan and stick to it.” – Alvin Adams, The Money Talks News Podcast
“You can’t change your financial situation overnight, but you can start making small changes today.” – Jada Pinkett Smith, Red Table Talk
“Financial freedom is a journey, not a destination.” – Aisha Curry, The Aisha Curry Show
“A budget is a tool that helps you track your income and expenses so you can make informed financial decisions.” – The Frugal Black Girl
“The most important aspect of keeping your money is being aware of how much of it you are spending.” – Tiffany ‘The Budgetnista’ Aliche, author of The One Week Budget
“The reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money.” – Oprah Winfrey
“I believe in destiny. But I also believe that you can’t just sit back and let destiny happen.” – Spike Lee
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
“The cynics may be the loudest voices — but I promise you, they will accomplish the least.” – Barack Obama
“I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter.” – Jay-Z
“Use your skills, your knowledge, your instincts to serve – to go change the world in the way that only you can.” – Robert F. Smith
“You are 30+, you can’t keep blaming your lack of financial literacy on your high school teachers.” – Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez
“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” – Wilma Rudolph

25 Quotes for your life’s journey

“Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.” — Marva Collins
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker T. Washington
“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” – Madam C.J. Walker
“Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.” – Barack Obama
“Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment and it comes with plenty of failures along the way.” – Barack Obama
“I’m here to tell you that, by virtue of your being here today, by virtue of walking across that stage – you are enough.” – Robert F. Smith
“If you can’t solve easy problems now, you will not be able to solve difficult problems later.” – Robert F. Smith
“Sooner or later (on the path to success), people will merely call you lucky.” – Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer.” – Harriet Tubman
“Entrepreneurs should always aim to play the long game. Instant gratification cannot build a legacy.”
– Andrena Sawyer
“Excuse me while I save, invest, and build wealth.” – Stephanie Lahart
“Black Love is Black Wealth” – Nikki Giovanni
“At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.” – Booker T. Washington
“I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that financial literacy, economic empowerment, and wealth building is going to be the last leg of the civil rights movement. Because one step toward financial literacy takes you two steps toward personal empowerment.” – Russell Simmons
“People seem to be coming around to the idea that true freedom as an economic foundation and that economic development is in fact connected to the development of Black privately-owned business.” – George Subira
“One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.” – Franklin Thomas
“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.” – Muhammad Ali
“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.” – Maya Angelou
“I knew then and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it.” – Claudette Colvin
“To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.” – Dorothy West
As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are.” – Malidoma Patrice Somé
“Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” – Toni Morrison
“Miracles happen all the time. We’re here, aren’t we?” – Marilyn Nelson
“Filling in the Blank. The next quote is the one you write for yourself.” – Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez