You can generally tell when somebody’s a big spender.
Their watch, their car, or their IG holiday feed will usually give it away.
But when somebody’s a successful investor, or is practised at making long-term decisions?
It’s wealth and insights that they have to spare.
Kindly step this way, to these investing quotes showing just that.
1. Fumio Sasaki
“The accumulation of small achievements is the only way to do something incredible.” - Fumio Sasaki
Fumio Sasaki, Japanese minimalist, decluttered his apartment over the span of about five years.
He was left with “three shirts, four pairs of trousers, four pairs of socks and not much else.”
The freedom he felt was immeasurable – and it could only have begun with a small first step.
Sasaki reminds us that big achievements take time, and you can’t always see them happening until you look back and realise everything’s changed.
2. Morgan Housel
“Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.” - Morgan Housel
Morgan Housel’s one of the most prominent financial voices of our generation.
He’s an investor and a New York Times best selling novelist.
He reminds us that keeping up with the Jones’ is a fool’s errand – and the money you spend on keeping your grass greener than the other guy’s could be better invested in your future.
3. Warren Buffett
"I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful." — Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett reminds us that if you let FOMO or panic decide your investing, you’re unlikely to end up ahead.
4. Charlie Munger
“The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.” - Charlie Munger
Warren Buffett’s BFF (RIP) lived by an ethos of long-term investing, and is credited with shaping the culture at Berkshire Hathaway.
It can be hard to sit on your hands, and it’s not always the right call, but Munger’s approach made him a lot of money.
5. Jeff Bezos
“Complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be." – Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos built one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world, Amazon, which he founded in 1994.
His journey took him from bookseller to billionaire – and he’s been big on reminding people that complaining is not a strategy.
It’s a lesson we can take with investing: it might feel good to complain about the market, or that our investments aren’t performing the way we wished they would.
But complaining doesn’t help us decide if there’s a better course of action to take.
6. Melanie Perkins
“Wherever possible, blame things you can fix.” - Melanie Perkins
Melanie Perkins, co-founder of Canva and one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, has been big on sharing her learnings along her journey.
In a 2018 blog post shared on Canva’s Medium, she wrote about how important it is to focus on the things you can change, rather than blame things that are outside your control.
We think this applies to investing, too.
If your investments aren’t performing the way you wished, is it because you don’t have enough diversification? You got caught up in FOMO, or you panic sold? You didn’t fully understand what you were getting yourself into? These are things you could learn from and fix for next time.
7. Geraldine Weiss
“Successful investing in the stock market is not brain surgery. Anyone can be a successful investor.” - Geraldine Weiss
Geraldine Weiss was a famous investor nicknamed the Grand Dame of Dividends.
She’d tried to get a job as an in-house investor at a company, but the wisdom of the time said that women couldn’t be investors (it was the 60s).
So instead she co-founded a newsletter and became the first woman to start an investment advisory service.
She killed it.
We like this quote because it reminds us that we should have equal access to investment opportunities – no matter who we are.
It’s a huge part of the reason we created Spaceship Voyager and keep making it better.
8. Michelle Zatlyn
“People don’t take opportunities because the timing is bad, (or) the financial side is unsecure. Too many people are overanalysing. Sometimes you just have to go for it.”
Michelle Zatlyn’s a co-founder of Cloudflare, which is an American cloud services company that helps power a huge chunk of the web.
Here she reminds us that as risky as action can be, inaction can often be much riskier.
9. Lisa Su
“Run toward the hardest problems.” - Lisa Su
Lisa Su is current president, CEO, and chair of Advanced Micro Devices, which is a semiconductor company.
She’s got a Ph.D in electrical engineering which she chose because it seemed like the hardest subject to major in.
She’s made a career – and a life – of running toward hard problems, rather than away from them, and in her case it’s paid off, for herself, and for her company’s investors.
She reminds us that things that are hard, such as keeping your cool in a volatile market, or not rushing to the shiniest new thing, can make us stronger.
10. Mellody Hobson
"The biggest risk of all is not taking one." - Mellody Hobson
Mellody Hobson’s the chairwoman of Starbucks, and the co-CEO of a huge investment firm.
She was also the inspiration for one of the main characters on The Good Wife.
Investing is risky, we remind you this all the time. But as Mellody reminds us, taking big risks can lead to big rewards.
11. John Bogle
"Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!" — John Bogle
John Bogle is the guy that founded Vanguard, and was influential in bringing index investing to the masses.
His beliefs was that picking winners is hard – but investing in an index, such as by buying into an ETF, would spread your exposure, covering your bases in good times and bad.
12. Peter Lynch
“Know what you own, and know why you own it” — Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch is a legendary investor who retired at age 46 after running a fund for 13 years.
So his success speaks for itself.
Here Peter Lynch reminds us that we shouldn’t invest in things we don’t understand.
13. Ben Graham
"In the short run, the market is a voting machine. But in the long run, it is a weighing machine." — Ben Graham
Ben Graham’s a good case of not letting the catastrophe of a lifetime define his lifetime.
He lost $500,000 in the 1920s stock market crash.
But then he had quite the comeback. Graham eventually became known as the ‘The Father of Value Investing’ and influenced Warren Buffett himself.
(Value investing is the strategy of identifying undervalued stocks because their underlying value will eventually be reflected in their price.)
14. Ginni Rometty
“Growth and comfort do not coexist.” — Ginni Rometty
Ginni Rometty is a former CEO of IBM, holding the title from 2012 until she retired from the company in 2020.
She spent nearly 40 years rising to the top of IBM, taking a myriad of partnerships and opportunities.
Rometty reminds us not to settle, and that good things can happen when we invest in ourselves and our futures.
15.Ruth Porat
“Stick to your true north - build greatness for the long term.” — Ruth Porat
Ruth Porat is president, chief investment officer, and chief financial officer of Alphabet, so we can safely assume she’s good at handling a lot of money – and her tip about staying true to yourself, and your goals, could help you create your own legacy.
16. Paul Samuelson
“Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” — Paul Samuelson
Paul Samuelson was an American economist and Nobel Prize winner, who also advised US presidents.
His perspective was that you should take the excitement out of investing so you don’t get hung up on the ups and downs and do something rash.
It’s easy to say, of course, but it’s a good reminder to try to keep cool heads when the going gets volatile – and shows we’re not the only ones with the opinion that panic selling is a terrible strategy.
17. Jason Zweig
“Investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game.” — Jason Zweig
Jason Zweig is an American financial journalist with a long history of writing about investing for Wall Street publications.
He maintains that it’s a mental game, and the best way to master the market is to master yourself.
18. Sara Blakely
"Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else." – Sara Blakely
As an investor, you get to tell your own story and go your own way.
Sara Blakely turned $5,000 into a global company.
It reminds us that leveraging our strengths and trusting the process can be way more lucrative than following any kind of playbook.
19. Melinda Gates
"If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped." – Melinda Gates
If you’re reading this, you’re better placed to learn about investing and to make smart financial decisions than arguably most people who’ve ever lived.
According to the World Bank, more than a billion people around the world are unbanked, which means they don’t even have a bank account.
Melinda Gates reminds us not to take our privilege for granted – and that wherever we are, we have a chance to move forward, and to lift up the people around us as we do.
20. Susan Wojcicki
“Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. 'Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities–the good ones–are messy, confusing and hard to recognise. They're risky. They challenge you.” – Susan Wojcicki
You’ve probably heard the story of how Sergey Brin and Larry Page co-founded Google in a garage in Silicon Valley.
Susan Wojcicki leased that garage to them, before becoming employee number 16 at Google, and holding a number of roles there before her biggest.
She agitated for Google to acquire YouTube and then ran it from 2014 to 2023.
Wojcicki reminds us that opportunities can be risky – and they can work out.
If leasing your garage for some extra money could snowball into helping run one of the world’s biggest companies, it means investing in yourself could lead you anywhere.
21. Michael Burry
"I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they’ve been polished up a bit." — Michael Burry
Michael Burry was played by Christian Bale in The Big Short – but before then he was just a humble investor and hedge fund founder who predicted and profited from the 2008 US stock market crash.
He graphically reminds us that you can be any type of investor you want to be - and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
22. Lynn Martin
"I tend to take the view that having a very balanced portfolio and knowing what you invest in, and investing for the long term is probably 9 times out of 10 the — maybe 9.5 times out of 10, the right philosophy to have." — Lynn Martin
Lynn Martin is the president of the New York Stock Exchange.
It’s her job to keep the stock market open and running smoothly so people everywhere can buy and sell stocks.
She’s someone who’s arguably seen it all - and she reminds us that pragmatism can win the day.
23. Nicolai Tangen
"The worst thing you can do is die with a lot of money." – Nicolai Tangen
Nicolai Tangen is the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.
It’s truly massive: it owns almost 1.5% of all the shares in the world’s listed companies, lends money to countries and companies, and owns buildings and a wind farm.
We think it’s a refreshing perspective from someone in charge of so much money.
24. Cathie Wood
"The concept of innovation is so often misunderstood. True innovation isn't about creating new things; it's about changing the way we think and do things." — Cathie Wood
Cathie Wood is CEO of ARK Invest, an investment fund that seeks to invest in disruptive companies.
She reminds us we can walk the talk by investing what we believe in, and that sometimes our biggest gains can be seen in our own mindset shifts.
25. Steve Jobs
“Focus and simplicity… once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs built one of the world’s most valuable companies, Apple, with famous attention to minimalist detail.
He reminds us that consistency and sticking to your plan can get you to the top.
26. Benjamin Graham
“To be an investor you must be a believer in a better tomorrow.” — Benjamin Graham
We’re ending on another one from Ben Graham, and he gets a pass because we love the sentiment of this quote.
It reminds us that by investing in the stock market, we really do get to shape our futures and build the lives we want to live.
One or more of the Spaceship Voyager portfolios invest in Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, Cloudflare, Advanced Micro Devices, Starbucks, Vanguard ETFs, IBM, Alphabet, and Apple at the time of writing. Please refer to the Spaceship app or our website for more information on what each portfolio invests in.
