John Templeton was a groundbreaking figure in finance and philanthropy.
Born in 1912 he graduated from Yale and Oxford then made a fortune on Wall Street by investing in struggling companies.
He later started one of the world’s biggest international investment funds.
In 1954, he founded the Templeton Growth Fund which turned every $10000 invested into $2 million by 1992.
Templeton was also a spiritual man who established the Templeton Prize in 1972 a £1000000 award for scientific and spiritual achievements.
He created the John Templeton Foundation in 1987 to explore “new spiritual information” through science. Sir John died in 2008 at age 95.
I have made a list of the best quotes by John Templeton.
Best John Templeton Quotes
If you want to become really wealthy, you must have your money work for you. ~ John Templeton.
Work at being a humble person. ~ John Templeton.
It is impossible to produce superior performance unless you do something very different. ~ John Templeton.
If you’re not grateful, you’re not rich – no matter how much you have. ~ John Templeton.
If a business is not ethical, it will fail, perhaps not right away but eventually. ~ John Templeton.
Buy value, not market trends or the economic outlook. ~ John Templeton.
If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search. ~ John Templeton.
Outperforming the majority of investors requires doing what they are not doing. Buying when others have despaired, and selling when they are full of hope, takes fortitude. ~ John Templeton.
Happiness pursued eludes, happiness given returns. ~ John Templeton.
Inspiring John Templeton Quotes
Help yourself by helping others. ~ John Templeton.
How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child’s personality. A child is resentful, negative, or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people. ~ John Templeton.
Diversify your investments. ~ John Templeton.
The person who is willing to say yes to experience is the person who discovers new frontiers. ~ John Templeton.
If we have not developed a reservoir of spiritual wealth, no amount of money is likely to make us happy. Spiritual wealth provides faith. It gives us love. It brings and expands wisdom. Spiritual wealth leads to happiness because it guides us into useful or loving relationships. ~ John Templeton.
Success is a process of continually seeking answers to new questions. ~ John Templeton.
What happens to us in life is less important; the real question can be whether or not we use the experience to grow. ~ John Templeton.
An attitude of gratitude creates blessings. Help yourself by helping others. You have the most powerful weapons on earth – love and prayer. ~ John Templeton.
The best investment with the least risk and the greatest dividend is giving. ~ John Templeton.
There are times to buy blue chip stocks, cyclical stocks, corporate bonds, U.S. Treasury instruments, and so on. And there are times to sit on cash, because sometimes cash enables you to take advantage of investment opportunities. ~ John Templeton.
Defer pleasure until the job is done. ~ John Templeton.
John Templeton Quotes on Investing
For those properly prepared, the bear market is not only a calamity but an opportunity. ~ John Templeton.
Hate, like prayer, changes the person involved in the activity, not the person the activity is aimed at. ~ John Templeton.
Everyone has special talents, and it is our duty to find ours and use them well. ~ John Templeton.
You can’t outperform the market if you buy the market. ~ John Templeton.
Never forget: the secret of creating riches for oneself is to create them for others. ~ John Templeton.
By facing our challenges and overcoming them, we grow stronger, wiser, and more compassionate. ~ John Templeton.
For all long-term investors, there is only one objective-maximum total real return after taxes. ~ John Templeton.
Invest at the point of maximum pessimism. ~ John Templeton.
Tell your readers to use it or lose it. If you don’t use your muscles, they get weak. If you don’t use your mind it begins to fail. ~ John Templeton.
As we learn to share and give and care, love increases. A person who knows how to love does not seem to feel lonely or alone. In this sense, the power of love can become a true weapon against harm. ~ John Templeton.
John Templeton Quotes on Markets
Don’t panic. The time to sell is before the crash, not after. ~ John Templeton.
Success in the stock market is based on the principle of buying low and selling high. Granted, one can make money by reversing the order – selling high and then buying low. ~ John Templeton.
Be very careful. Giving because we think we will get something back will not work. You must be 100 percent willing to give and never experience any return, or it will not work. ~ John Templeton.
Focus on value because most investors focus on outlooks and trends. ~ John Templeton.
The commitment of giving your best at all times, in all circumstances and under all conditions, can enable you to find value in, and lend value to, every experience. ~ John Templeton.
Those who spend too much will eventually be owned by those who are thrifty. ~ John Templeton.
Forgive yourself for your errors. Don’t become discouraged, and certainly don’t try to recoup your losses by taking bigger risks. ~ John Templeton.
An attitude of gratitude creates blessings. ~ John Templeton.
The air we breathe is necessary to keep us alive, but we must continually breathe it out so we can breathe fresh air back into our lungs. God gives us his love, which we can keep in action by breathing it out to others, thus making room in our hearts for a fresh supply of love. ~ John Templeton.
Famous John Templeton Quotes
Each of us has a purpose for living beyond our own survival and pleasure. Every individual is like a thread in a beautiful tapestry with a vital contribution to make, not only to the sustenance of life as we know it, but in the creation and development of more beneficial expressions of life. ~ John Templeton.
The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other finds an excuse. ~ John Templeton.
There will always be bull markets followed by bear markets followed by bull markets. ~ John Templeton.
Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose? ~ John Templeton.
It is nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice. ~ John Templeton.
Let no day go by without counting your blessing. ~ John Templeton.
If you are curious as to what your future may hold, you can look into a mirror. What is reflecting back? Does a sparkle in your eyes indicate excitement about new adventures and opportunities? Does a smile on your lips portray an inner happiness and abundant goodwill towards others? ~ John Templeton.
Humility about how little I know has encouraged me to listen more carefully and more wisely. ~ John Templeton.
The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy. ~ John Templeton.
The opposite of humility is arrogance – the belief that we are wiser or better than others. Arrogance promotes separation rather than community. It looms like a brick wall between us and those from whom we could learn. ~ John Templeton.
If you buy the same securities everyone else is buying, you will have the same results as everyone else. ~ John Templeton.
Ultimately it is the individual stocks that determine the market. ~ John Templeton.
Top John Templeton Quotes
The four most expensive words in the English language are, ‘This time it’s different.’ ~ John Templeton.
High ethics and religious principles form the basis for success and happiness in every area of life. ~ John Templeton.
Individual stocks can rise in a bear market and fall in a bull market. ~ John Templeton.
An investor who has all the answers doesn’t even understand all the questions. ~ John Templeton.
Buy stocks for less than they are worth and hold them – as long as it takes for the market to appreciate how undervalued they are. ~ John Templeton.
Kindness comes back like a boomerang to those who are kind. Perhaps, its return takes years. Perhaps, the kindness returns from a different direction than that which we sent out kindness. But it will return. It is never lost. ~ John Templeton.
To buy when others are despondently selling and sell when others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest reward. ~ John Templeton.
Before this century is over, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will probably be over one million versus around 10,000 now. So for the long-term, the outlook is tremendously bullish if you buy stocks blindly to keep for a century. ~ John Templeton.
Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. ~ John Templeton.
If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently
To get joy, we must give it and to keep joy, we must scatter it. ~ John Templeton.
Usually God favors the people who try to do good. So, when you find that the crowd is desperately trying to sell, help them and buy. When you find that the crowd is overenthusiastically trying to buy, help them and sell. It usually works out. ~ John Templeton.
Living life with a smile is like throwing yeast into a bowl of flour, adding warm water and waiting for the flour to rise. It multiplies many times over. ~ John Templeton.