Finding good partners is the key to success in anything: in business, in marriage and, especially, in investing.

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.

If I have cash and I can't figure a way to put it into real estate or my business, I hold it in gold and silver.

If you or I fail at business, we fail. If we cheat and fail, we go to jail. But if you're rich and politically connected, your incompetence may be protected by a government bailout.

This rise of the new global mega-rich is happening as established institutions are falling. The fall runs the gamut from the music business and traditional media to the Detroit automakers who find themselves obsolete, outmaneuvered, and out-priced by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Shanghai, and even Siberia.

Start a part-time business and make as many mistakes as you possibly can while you still have your daytime job.

When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge.

Warren Buffett is famous for talking about the 'intrinsic value' of stocks. But while many people parrot this phrase, few know what it really means.

The thing I always say to people is this: 'If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.'

Financial freedom is available to those who learn about it and work for it.

When you combine boring with fear, you have fun.

If you want to thrive in today's economy, you must challenge the status quo and get the financial education necessary to succeed.

Until we have comprehensive financial education, we'll never see the end of our booms and busts.

Most small-business owners have no financial education when they started. They weren't trained to be entrepreneurs.

Academic qualifications are important and so is financial education. They're both important and schools are forgetting one of them.

Education is what you learn after you leave school.

Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else's religion, but he'll accept his gold.

My company survives because I've learned to respect the ideas of people younger than me and recognize when my wisdom is obsolete.

Over a 10-year period, 99 out of 100 new entrepreneurs will fail. Only one will be left standing as others get pushed out of the market or burn out from working so hard. It's really sad.

For something to collapse, not all systems have to shut down. In most cases, just one system is enough. For example, the human body is a system of systems. If just one system, such as the cardiovascular system, shuts down, death follows.

The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

Millions of Americans and people around the world, especially young people who face intense financial challenges today, haven't been taught how to take control of their financial future.

If you don't like the idea that most of the money spent on lottery tickets supports government programs, you should know that most of the earnings from mutual funds support investment advisors' and mutual fund managers' retirement.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

People clinging to job security, savings, retirement plans, and other relics will be the ones financially-ravaged from 2010-2020, the most volatile world-changing decade in history.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

The Web and new technology offer more opportunities to reach a world market at a lower price. Today, a person can start a business at home and reach the world market.

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.