How to Worry Less about Money Quotes

“One’s relationship with money is lifelong, it colors one’s sense of identity, it shapes one’s attitude to other people, it connects and splits generations; money is the arena in which greed and generosity are played out, in which wisdom is exercised and folly committed. Freedom, desire, power, status, work, possession: these huge ideas that rule life are enacted, almost always, in and around money.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less about Money

“Money brings about good consequences – helps us live valuable lives – only when joined with ‘virtues’. Virtues are good abilities of mind and character.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“It may well be that status-seeking is an inescapable impulse of human nature. If this is true then we should seek to reform it, rather than vainly try to eliminate it. Reform would link status to the right things. It’s not wrong to admire someone, or to think of them as enviable. What we must ask is why we admire, and what it is that we envy. If someone has high status because they are wise, generous, sensitive to beauty and bring out the best in others – then absolutely their high status is deserved.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“Higher needs are often met in indirect ways. What we really need is time, mental space, understanding, a level of engagement with the minds and lives of others.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“But the thing is, the two tables we have don’t go all that well together. One is rather better than the other. The one for sale in the shop window would be a much better fit with the overall pattern and style of the room. So, on balance I’d say that we need that table. Although there is a completely obvious sense in which we can live without it, I think that it is right that we should have it. There’s something substantial I want to do with it in my life. This is not random acquisitiveness. It’s a part of creating an environment that embodies values that I live by and take seriously. I appreciate the particular qualities and merits of the table. However, I’ve decided that I can’t afford the table. But I don’t want to give up wanting it. I don’t want to school myself into the belief that, because I can’t afford it, it doesn’t matter whether I have it or not.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“But the thing is, the two tables we have don’t go all that well together. One is rather better than the other. The one for sale in the shop window would be a much better fit with the overall pattern and style of the room. So, on balance I’d say that we need that table. Although there is a completely obvious sense in which we can live without it, I think that it is right that we should have it. There’s something substantial I want to do with it in my life.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“The fact is that the money in our bank account was once something else: work and enterprise. And that money will become something else: possessions and experiences.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money

“Worry is a name for mental effort: ideally one wants to worry more insightfully and more purposefully. The aim of adult life, one might say, is to worry well. We worry about things that matter; worry implies care. So: how much should you care about money? In what ways should you care about money? And for what reasons should you care about money? Should you feel fearful of money? Self-knowledge, skill and courage – the true antidotes to fear – do not make danger go away. They enable us to live a more flourishing life, despite the existence of danger.”
― John Armstrong, How to Worry Less About Money