Siegfried Lenz Quotes

There's a popular image of people who don't save for the future as lacking in self-control. But the reason saving is so hard has less to do with self-control and more to do with a scarcity of attention.

Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.

I try to not get to the point where one is making wallpaper, or simply painting money. I want to make sure that I am at least trying to weigh myself down, that there's a challenge each time.

I had one year of struggle. My parents were always there, but I didn't want to rely on them. Now it's moving pretty fast. I'm not rich, but obviously this is fantastic. All I know to do with money is put it in a shoebox anyway.

I grew up in Harlem Grant projects, and I didn't have a whole lot then. I've always been good about only getting what I need, not what I want. Just because someone else has something, I don't feel the need to.

I don't really think about my future. I don't really worry about anything. I just try not to spend all my money.

I just felt like I couldn't deal with the everyday responsibilities of life, paying bills and all of that. I'm terrible at all of that. So I knew I had to make enough money to pay someone else to deal with all of that.

Instead of looking outside of ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us.

I live way below my means.

Once you get in a position where your rent is taken care of and you do have a job, you really get to deal with yourself and really become one with yourself. And you wake to your mind every day. That's your best friend and your worst enemy - your own brain.

No one is rich whose expenditures exceed his means, and no one is poor whose incomings exceed his outgoings.

When we're in a peak, we make a ton of money, and as soon as we make a ton of money, we're desperately looking for a way to spend it. And we diversify into areas that, frankly, we don't know how to run very well.

Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.

The only people who have control over their careers are the ones you see on the covers of magazines. Everyone else is just plodding along making a living. The key is not to live over your means and overdo it.

Our incomes should be like our shoes; if too small, they will gall and pinch us; but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip.

Maybe a thing that you do not like is really in your interest. It is possible that a thing that you may desire may be against your interest.

My Mum brought me up to believe that if you look after the pennies then the pounds look after themselves, and I could never do it.

Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.

I used to be really anxious about money. I got that from my parents. I still am, but for entirely different reasons.

Thrift is of great revenue.

Don't be like my mother when my father had a heart attack. My mother had never handled the finances. I don't ever want to see anybody go through that. Women shouldn't be in that position.

The key to wealth is not what we earn. It is in what is spent on us.

I never thought to ever ask for money. I was so stupid.

I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.

I should have known growing up and not having any money ever that I should have kept every dollar that I had.