This is the ninth post in a series comprising my Education Freedom Manifesto (full PDF Download). For part eight in this series, click here.
Education Freedom Manifesto
Section 8
Money, Business, Success, and Happiness
Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.
William A. Ward
The Art of Living
Everyone is engaged in the pursuit of happiness. Many people falsely believe that money and fame will make them happy. Good character and healthy relationships are true assets in the pursuit of happiness, and inner peace comes from living according to true human values.
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
The poor can think of nothing else.
Oscar Wilde
Still, resources and effort are necessary to afford the needs and wants of life. Understanding money and business is crucial to living in abundance.
Understanding the Value of Money
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
Jonathan Swift
Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.
Alexandre Dumas
Money is not the root of all evil, but it can’t buy happiness either. Money has no inherent value. Money is a convenient way to exchange value. Money is simply a tool. It enables action. It is how money is acquired and used that affects our happiness.
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.
Margaret Thatcher
When wealth is acquired through honest effort, it is a good thing. Abundance is not a zero-sum game.
Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.
Henrik Ibsen
Wise maintenance of your money increases abundance. Using your means to respectfully care for yourself and others is true human stewardship. To be a true master over money, you must learn to employ and invest it honestly and wisely.
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.
Margaret Thatcher
Understanding the Manipulation of Money
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
Ayn Rand
Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system,
for it they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford
Humanity now commonly struggles beneath the burden of monopolized artificial money and the consequences of its manipulation. Fractional reserve banking has allowed for the legalized plunder of people all over the world. The downfalls of counterfeit debt being mistaken for capital are felt first and most sharply by the poor and ignorant who do not understand the sophisticated ways in which money and credit are manipulated.
Have you ever wondered why our school systems do not teach us
much—if anything—about money? Is the lack of financial education
in our schools simply an oversight by our educational leaders?
Or is it part of a larger conspiracy? Regardless, whether we are rich or poor,
educated or uneducated, child or adult, retired or working, we all use money.
Like it or not, money has a tremendous impact on our lives in today’s world.
To omit the subject of money from our educational system is cruel and unconscionable.
Our educational system has failed millions of people—even the educated.
Robert Kiyosaki
The Business of Business
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
Lily Tomlin
Everyone has business. Most people choose to sell their time directly to employers who make decisions about how to best spend that time. Other people employ their efforts to create value in greater proportion, which often results in ownership of an enterprise. In any case, everyone has good reason to learn the fundamentals of business because letting others manage your affairs can never lead to stability, maturity, and independence.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
Jim Rohn
The most basic fundamental of business is value. Part of living in abundance is understanding that prosperity is a result of creating value. If you want to be successful in business, don’t serve yourself; serve others something of value. Many people spend time thinking about how to get more money. The only honest way to get more money is to provide more value to more people.
Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness –
great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.
Jim Rohn
Good business management requires both mental and moral discipline. First, you must invest your own efforts to understand how to make good decisions. Second, integrity must guide your analysis and decision making. These two disciplines will blunt greed and give you a wise viewpoint from which to recognize good value propositions, mitigate risks, and cooperate with integrity.
There are two types of education…
One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.
John Adams
Success, Satisfaction, and Happiness
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Peter Drucker
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and
look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw
Success is not determined by luck or magic. When you have defined success, you are ready to live your life on purpose. Lives of meaning, satisfaction, and value are not lived by chance.
Success is not to be measured by income but by influence,
not by power but by personality, not by capital but by character.
Stephen W. Gilman
Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.
Arthur Miller
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted,
for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
C. S. Lewis
Success with money only satisfies money concerns. It cannot provide you with purpose or fulfillment.
That which we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly.
Thomas Paine
Everyone must define success for themselves so that they can pursue it, recognize it, and appreciate it. Success, however defined, can only be achieved through effort. Worthwhile effort in itself is a satisfying experience, and increases overall satisfaction by increasing appreciation for the results. Success cannot be recognized without gratitude, and cannot be fully enjoyed without being shared.
Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
Jean Antoine Petit-Senn
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