Playing it safe and taking no risks is a shortcut to poverty

The year I turned 26, as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.

I want you to back yourself into a corner. Give yourself no choice but to succeed. Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you’ll have no choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.

The easiest way to make money is create something of such value that everybody wants and go out and give and create value, the money comes automatically.

When you live your life by poor standards, you inflict damage on everyone who crosses your path, especially those you love.

If you give people a good enough 'why', they will always figure out the 'how'.

Don't hang up until the client either buys or dies.

You don’t choose who you fall in love with, do you? And once you do fall in love—that obsessive sort of love, that all-consuming love, where two people can’t stand to be apart from each other for even a moment—how are you supposed to let a love like that pass you by?

Winners use words that say 'must' and 'will'.

The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.

I do not come from a rich family, but I come from a really good family.

I believe in total immersion, if you want to be rich, you have to program your mind to be rich. You have to unlearn all the thoughts that were making you poor and replace them with new thoughts - rich thoughts.

My name is Jordan Belfort. I was raised in a tiny apartment in Queens. At the tender age of 22 I headed to Wall Street. Within months I started my own firm out of an abandoned auto body shop. The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.

Best way to sell something: don't sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect and trust of those who might buy.

The story that you tell yourself is exactly what holds you back from being successful.

Don't follow the path. Blaze the trail.