Selected finance quotes

1. It's hard to lose weight when you're dining on the company's money.

2. Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

3. Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

4. The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.

5. Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.

6. It costs money to stay healthy, but it's even more expensive to get sick.

7. Buy an annuity cheap, and make your life interesting to yourself and everybody else that watches the speculation.

8. My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.

9. I used to work in jobs I hated because I needed the money to buy a guitar. I know what it feels like to be depressed. On the other hand, I also know what it feels like to have money, to be successful, to be independent, but I can tell you that money and success never solve your problems.

10. Daddy pays for the water, daddy pays for the gas, daddy pays for the electricity, and if daddy didn't pay for the electricity, he'd pay for the candle on your nightstand, so you can study for the big test tomorrow.

11. There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

12. Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.

13. I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They're first in with their fees and first out when there's trouble.

14. Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.

15. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

16. An American credit card...is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be.

17. I like my players to be married and in debt. That's the way you motivate them.

18. Don't give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you.

19. There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher's daughter.

20. Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

21. Financial markets are supposed to swing like a pendulum: They may fluctuate wildly in response to exogenous shocks, but eventually they are supposed to come to rest at an equilibrium point and that point is supposed to be the same irrespective of the interim fluctuations. Instead, as I told Congress, financial markets behaved more like a wrecking ball, swinging from country to country and knocking over the weaker ones. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the international financial system itself constituted the main ingredient in the meltdown process.

22. The global crisis is caused by pathologies inherent in the global financial system itself.

23. The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

24. It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.

25. As we drive down the freeways, we see the new cars, but not the massive new-car loans that enslave their drivers to the banks.

26. What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at large insures the insurance companies.

27. We have some control over when we retire. However, we have very little control over how long we will live.

28. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt.

29. Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

30. About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

31. Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.

32. Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

33. Money is indispensable to a long-circuit heavy load energy system. It must be used when a sufficient surplus is being produced to allow a margin for exchange, and cost of transport, over a considerable distance. Money represents a storage battery when idle, and a generalized mode of the conversion of energy when it is in motion, with a function of equating time and space.

34. Owe money at Easter and Lent will seem short to thee.

35. Trust your husband, adore your husband, and get as much as you can in your own name.

36. Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors.

37. I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.

38. Though he love not to buy the pig in the poke.

39. When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble - until the day of disaster.

40. The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.

41. Bear, Jr., James A., ed. Jefferson's Memorandum Books, 2 vols. (1997). Jefferson's account books with records of daily expenses.

42. 'It's about one thing, and that one thing is...DA MON-AAY! It's all about...DA MON-AAY!'

43. If you see a Swiss banker jumping out of a window, follow him, there is sure to be 10% profit in it.

44. My brother called and said that we owed the bank four and one half million dollars. And I began to laugh. And he said, 'What are you laughin' at?' And I said, 'I was just thinking back when we couldn't borrow a thousand dollars.'

45. Much has been written about panics and manias, much more than with the most outstretched intellect we are able to follow or conceive; but one thing is certain, that at particular times a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid money.

46. A Reichsbank president who was totally ignorant of what went in and out of the vaults of his bank.

47. As Minister of Economics, Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the gold teeth fillings of concentration camp victims, probably the most ghoulish collateral in banking history.

48. The greatest thing I ever was able to do was to give a welfare check back.

49. Economy is the first and great article (economy such as I understand it) in my financial creed. The controversy between direct and indirect taxation holds a minor, thought important place.

50. But how is the spirit of expenditure to be exorcised? Not by preaching; I doubt if even by yours. I seriously doubt whether it will ever give place to the old spirit of economy, as long as we have the income-tax. There, or hard by, lie questions of deep practical moment.

51. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should boldly uphold economy in detail; and it is the mark of a chicken-hearted Chancellor when he shrinks from upholding economy in detail, when because it is a question of only two or three thousand pounds, he says it is no matter. He is ridiculed, no doubt, for what is called candle-ends and cheese-parings, but he is not worth his salt if he is not ready to save what are meant by candle-ends and cheese-parings in the cause of the country. No Chancellor of the Exchequer is worth his salt who makes his own popularity either his consideration, or any consideration at all, in administering the public purse. In my opinion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the trusted and confidential steward of the public. He is under a sacred obligation with regard to all that he consents to spend.

52. He was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who ever made the Budget interesting. 'He talked shop,' it was said, 'like a tenth muse.' He could apply all the resources of a glowing rhetoric to the most prosaic questions of cost and profit; could make beer romantic and sugar serious. He could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and the monetary merits of half-farthings.

53. The greatest Chancellor of all time.

54. With that, he scribbled in an additional ninety thousand dollars on the estimate, which had waxed to the girth of the Talmud while rivaling it in possible interpretations.

55. I have also reviewed my own financial obligations, which have puffed up recently like a hammered thumb.

56. There are 196 SCSU students that have Rec. passes that cost $27 per semester, which is a really good deal considering you could spend that in one night.

57. Voluntary taxation, far from impairing the 'State's' credit, would strengthen it. In the first place, the simplification of its functions would greatly reduce, and perhaps entirely abolish, its need to borrow, and the power to borrow is generally inversely proportional to the steadiness of the need. It is usually the inveterate borrower who lacks credit. In the second place, the power of the State to repudiate, and still continue its business, is dependent upon its power of compulsory taxation. It knows that, when it can no longer borrow, it can at least tax its citizens up to the limit of revolution. In the third place, the State is trusted, not because it is over and above individuals, but because the lender presumes that it desires to maintain its credit and will therefore pay its debts. This desire for credit will be stronger in a 'State' supported by voluntary taxation than in the State which enforces taxation.

58. A whore, in my estimation, has more credibility than a wife, and I'll tell you why. A wife is supposed to marry you for love. A whore is not there for love, she's there to service you. Now, the difference between them is a whore, before she does her work, will tell you exactly what it is. She'll tell you, 'Blow job? This'll cost you seventy-five dollars. This is not love, and after I'm done I never want to see you again.' Full disclosure is what they call it in court. A wife will tell you shit. A wife will tell you nothing. She's about to marry you. If you get divorced, she's going to take 50 percent of your gross pretax dollars and try to get more. Now, before you get married, if you dare bring up the notion, 'By the way, let's just be completely honest with each other, what happens if we break up?' she will cry and tell you, 'That's so unromantic.' You know who's more credible? The whore.

59. We live in a global economy, but the political organization of our global society is woefully inadequate. We are bereft of the capacity to preserve peace and to counteract the excesses of the financial markets. Without these controls, the global economy, is liable to break down

60. If treasury bills are emitted on a tax appropriated for their redemption in fifteen years, and (to insure preference in the first moments of competition) bearing an interest of six per cent, there is no one who would not take them in preference to the bank paper now afloat, on a principle of patriotism as well as interest; and they would be withdrawn from circulation into private hoards to a considerable amount. Their credit once established, others might be emitted, bottomed also on a tax, but not bearing interest; and if ever their credit faltered, open public loans, on which these bills alone should be received as specie. These, operating as a sinking fund, would reduce the quantity in circulation, so as to maintain that in an equilibrium with specie. It is not easy to estimate the obstacles which, in the beginning, we should encounter in ousting the banks from their possession of the circulation; but a steady and judicious alternation of emissions and loans would reduce them in time.

61. The art and mystery of banks... is established on the principle that 'private debts are a public blessing.' That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from the repayment of these debts beyond a give proportion (generally estimated at one-third). And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the same premium of six or eight per cent interest, and on the same legal exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt, when it shall be called for.

62. u screamin' go 2pac, and I ain't stopin' till i'm well paid/bails paid/now nigga, look what hell made

63. Keep your mind on your money/enroll in school/And as the years pass by/you can show them fools

64. Now they got me goin to the county jail/And my family can't pay this outrageous bail

65. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

66. 'What about the money?'

67. 'Despite the fact that my weapons and armor are in desperate need of repair, I blow the entire reward on ale and whores.'

68. It's easy to forget you are in debt to the tune of ?10, and to a woman who never forgets anything. Crikey, she can even tell you which Coronation Street character was the first one to have their brain removed (Footnote: And not have it replaced by acting talent unfortunately.)

69. The most powerful tool to lift families out of extreme poverty is to grant micro-loans to women.

70. Micro-finance is a wonderful opportunity for businesses. By investing a small portion of their income in micro-finance projects, they not only take an active part in business ethics, but they also gain future business partners and consumers.

71. First off, I'm actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don't really mind). I've got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? The thing is, being a good programmer actually pays pretty well; being acknowledged as being world-class pays even better. I simply didn't need to start a commercial company. And it's just about the least interesting thing I can even imagine. I absolutely hate paperwork. I couldn't take care of employees if I tried. A company that I started would never have succeeded -- it's simply not what I'm interested in! So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good. -- 8/15/07 -- http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/TechGovernment/News.asp?id=44682&PageMem=2 --

72. The stock of money, prices and output was decidedly more unstable after the establishment of the Reserve System than before. The most dramatic period of instability in output was, of course, the period between the two wars, which includes the severe (monetary) contractions of 1920-1, 1929-33, and 1937-8. No other 20 year period in American history contains as many as three such severe contractions. This evidence persuades me that at least a third of the price rise during and just after World War I is attributable to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System... and that the severity of each of the major contractions - 1920-1, 1929-33 and 1937-8 is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank... To paraphrase Clemenceau, money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers.

73. I spoke to my dad and he said it took close to 90 dollars to raise me, but that was me and my sister and my sister moved out when she was 16, so sometimes it can knock you up to triple digits to raise a kid.

74. There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

75. A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

76. Hamilton is really a colossus... without numbers, he is a host unto himself.

77. The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

78. The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system is the life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when the nation has voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when compared with the countless blessings that will be conferred upon our country and upon man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now, on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since the return of peace, it is of the utmost importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be put in motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war.

79. I hold it the duty of the Executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditures, and a sparing economy is itself a great national resource.

80. Debt is the prolific mother of folly and of crime.

81. Our inflation, our public enemy number one, will, unless whipped, destroy our country, our homes, our liberties, our property and finally our national pride as surely as will a well-armed wartime enemy.

82. I made a killing on Wall Steet a few years ago...I shot my broker.

83. [Social Security is] a Ponzi scheme -- named after Charles Ponzi, who set up a similar plan in Boston in 1920. He promised to pay investors 50% profit on their money in just 45 days. Gullible people poured money into his plan. But he couldn't possibly earn enough on the money to equal the rate of return he promised. So when someone wanted to withdraw his principal and interest, Ponzi simply paid him from money received from new investors. Eventually he couldn't meet the demands for repayment, and his scheme collapsed. He ended up in jail. But another such scheme was started in 1935, and this one is still going. It's called Social Security. Social Security differs from a Ponzi scheme in only two ways: 1. The politicians won't arrest themselves. 2. The politicians can change the rules whenever necessary to keep the scheme going.

84. Social Security is inherently unsound for the simple reason that it's a political program run by politicians for political purposes...Social Security operates on a very simple principle: the politicians take your money from you and squander it.

85. The best thing we can do for family values is to repeal the income tax. Then families will have the resources they need to implement their own values -- and not those of the politicians. With the income tax gone, families will no longer be forced to have two breadwinners by necessity. Children will be raised better, family values will predominate, and crime will diminish. If your local school indoctrinates your child with values that are alien to you, you'll have the money to buy a private education.

86. Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, or a government-pension, - provided you continue to breathe, - by whatever fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the almshouse.

87. Penny saved is a penny got.

88. Be at the pains of putting down every single item of expenditure whatsoever every day which could possibly be twisted into a professional expense and remember to lump in all the doubtfulls.

89. I don't want to tell you how much insurance I carry with the Prudential, but all I can say is: when I go, they go too.

90. I did the thing with bonds, which was about 30 million dollars, and didn't get none of the money on them.

91. The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

92. If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.

93. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

94. It is generally agreed that casinos should, in the public interest, be inaccessible and expensive. And perhaps the same is true of Stock Exchanges.

95. The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

96. Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.

97. Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then give all you can.

98. London is the clearing-house of the world.

99. We all know how the size of sums of money appears to vary in a remarkable way according as they are being paid in or paid out.

100. The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.