There is a great book by George Clason called Richest Man in Babylon. Have you ever read it?

I would recommend it, you can easily find an online copy (PDF), like this one, for free if you google.

One of the GREATEST piece of advice in that book (apart from many others, that form the basis of all our financial knowledge) can be summed up like this:

"if you keep on working for money - you will keep on working.
IF you put your money to work for you, it works for you all the time so that you don't have to work for money."

To me, this was all the financial knowledge distilled into one fine sentence.