You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

I want parents to teach that academic intelligence is essential, but so is financial intelligence.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the 'right' thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It's like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

People invest in businesses that they believe have the leadership, mission and team to grow and operate profitably.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

Most businesses think that product is the most important thing, but without great leadership, mission and a team that deliver results at a high level, even the best product won't make a company successful.

Ken Lay, the disgraced former chairman of Enron, found a way to escape his legal problems: He died after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges.

Learn to invest in investments where you can achieve an honest, legal advantage over other investors. When it comes to investing, why play on a level field?

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It's a lesson I've had to relearn quite a few times.

My partner Donald Trump says that married couples should always have a prenuptial agreement. True, a prenuptial is important if one partner is much richer than the other before marriage, but Kim and I don't have one.

Money has a language of its own.

We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.

When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa, and every payday she'd pay a little toward the purchase.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That's where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It's having backbone.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it's spoken.

Today, medical devices such as catheters and stethoscopes use silver, and every hospital in the western world uses silver sulfadiazine to prevent infections.

If medical doctors can be sued for malpractice, shouldn't financial professionals practice under the same safeguard?

There may be less of a chance of losing all the money you put into a mutual fund than there is of losing all the money you put into lottery tickets, but you're never going to win big in a mutual fund.

If you're working for a good company and you're happy there, and you're being compensated accordingly, and your work satisfies you, you should stay there.

The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.

If you have faith in our leaders of commerce, don't buy gold. If you do not have faith in them, maybe you should buy gold or silver.

It was easy being healthy when I was young. I was full of energy, so sports and physical challenges were fun. But as I got older and the spring left my step, exercise became harder, and eating, drinking and watching TV became easier. By the time I was 50, I'd put on 50 pounds.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a 'have-not,' but I knew that I wasn't.

In 1997, in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I stated, 'Your home is not an asset.' Real estate agents sent me hate mail.

My rich dad believed we should all learn to take care of ourselves.

When my book 'Rich Dad's Prophecy' was released in 2002, most financial newspapers and magazines trashed it because I discussed a looming stock market crash.

The environmentalists say capitalism is killing our oceans, air, land, and forests. Capitalists argue that they provide food, fuel, and building materials for a growing world.

I've got some great guy friends. They can start out as crushes. But when you realize something isn't going to happen, you make a choice whether or not the friendship is worth it. And it usually is. Then you can laugh about the fact that you used to have a crush on him or he had one on you.

I'm at peace with myself and where I am. In the past, I was always looking to see how everybody else was doing. I wasn't competitive, I was comparative. I just wanted to be where everybody else was. Now I've gotten to an age when I am not comparing anymore.

I think every relationship has a point where you stop and reevaluate. Are you happy? Have you grown together or apart? What do you share interests in? I think that's a normal thing to do, but it's so much harder when it's done publicly.

A lot of my humor does come from anger. It's like, you're not gonna pull one over on me - which is pretty much my motto anyways.

If I like myself at this weight, then this is what I'm going to be. I don't have an eating disorder.

I just am a snob when it comes to humor.

I'm not a passive person by any stretch of the imagination.

You know, my mother's beautiful, my dad was a really handsome man, and there was a lot of talk about looks when I was growing up.

Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underlines what is needed to set up a business.

Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

Starting your own business isn't just a job - it's a way of life.

All you have in business is your reputation - so it's very important that you keep your word.

One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.

Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are.

Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.

An important priority for me is a business must get their own house in order. Be or become an agent of positive change in your own enterprise and adopt responsible practices to eliminate the risks that often lie at the root of inequality and poverty.

It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success. It's not, and nor should it be.

From my very first day as an entrepreneur, I've felt the only mission worth pursuing in business is to make people's lives better.

Well, I think that there's a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you're likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

My early business ventures included growing Christmas trees and breeding birds.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren't proud of what you're doing, why should anybody else be?