Peter Lynch Quotes

Millionaires are risk-takers, and they don't become millionaires until they're 40 or 50. It's a slower process than a lot of people think.

Prosperity comes slowly.

At the end of the day, yes, I'm looking to create a lot of wealth.

For most people, their wealth accrues slowly, and at any given point they say, 'Okay, I should kick up my standard of living because now I've earned slightly more wealth.' I went from the dorm room to having a billion dollars.

I'm potentially worth a lot of money, but I've got to go and make something that's worth a lot of money.

The key to making money is to stay invested.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

Contrary to common assumption, many of the wealthiest Americans aren't worried about the weakening economy at all. They are actually excited about it.

We're trying to make money, trying to add a zero onto our net worth.

My experience indicates that most people who've accumulated a great deal of wealth haven't had that as their goal at all. Wealth is only a by-product, not the original motivation.

Let's face it, we're not about to earn our way to wealth. That's a mistake millions of Americans make. We think that if we work harder, smarter, longer, we'll achieve our financial dreams, but our paycheck alone-no matter how big-isn't the answer.

The real key to wealth is the gradual accumulation, it's something Jesus talked about I call the law of use and you couple with the exponential curve.

Most people put money in their piggy bank. I buy a goose that lays golden eggs over and over again. That's what an asset is.

In the long run, it's not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It's how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.

You don't have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich - just a bit better than average over a long period of time.

For a start, the salary begins to have an attraction and addictiveness all of its own. A regular paycheck and crack cocaine have that in common. In addition, and more to the point, working too long for other people can blunt your desire to take risks. This last factor is crucial, because the ability to live with and embrace risk is what sets apart the financial winners and losers in the world.

Many people say, "When I get a million dollars, then I'll be happy because I'll have security," but that's not necessarily so. Most people who acquire a million dollars want another and then another. Or they could be like a good friend of mine who made and lost every dime of a million dollars. It didn't bother him a bit. He wasn't excited about it, but he explained to me, "Zig, I still know everything necessary to make another million dollars, and I've learned what to do not to lost it. I'll simply go back to work and earn it again.

It only takes a handful of big winners to make a lifetime of investing worthwhile.

I never had to worry about divestment because I never invested.

Absolutely invest in retirement. You can always get a loan to get kids through school. I do not know of any loans to get you through retirement. The markets are seriously low from where they were (even though they've gone up 30 percent recently). Now is the time to be dollar cost averaging; the more money you put in, the more shares you buy. Save for your retirement, people.

In the next 15 or 20 years, I hope I'll be the richest man in the world. That's one of my goals. I want to be a billionaire. I want to get to a position where generation on generation don't have to worry about nothing. I don't want family members from my kids to my son's kids to never have to worry. And I can't do that now just playing basketball.

I want to get rich and die old.

If you're lucky enough to have been rewarded in life to the degree that I have, there comes a point at which you have to decide whether to become a slave to your net worth by devoting the rest of your life to increasing it or to let what you've accumulated begin to serve you.

Our standard prescription for the know-nothing investor with a long-term time horizon is a no-load index fund. I think that works better than relying on your stock broker. The people who are telling you to do something else are all being paid by commissions or fees. The result is that while index fund investing is becoming more and more popular, by and large it's not the individual investors that are doing it. It's the institutions.