“Unfortunately, Senator, nobody knows where the next innovative idea is coming from.”

Since I’ve become a central banker, I’ve learned to mumble with great incoherence.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities.

Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.

The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality.

I have one other issue I’d like to throw on the table. I hesitate to do it, but let me tell you some of the issues that are involved here.

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices.

There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth.

At the risk of some oversimplification, if the skill composition of our work force meshed fully with the needs of our increasingly complex capital-stock, wage-skill differentials would be stable.

And she always has so much fun doing it. We make a good team.

I’ve been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I’ve never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I’m not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it’s got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.

As long as we issue fiat currency, I see no alternative to a legal tender law.

The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War.

Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity are in a state of shocked disbelief.

The probability of ten consecutive heads is 0.1 percent; thus, when you have millions of coin tossers, or investors, in the end there will be thousands of very successful practitioners of coin tossing, or stock picking.

Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.

I began stealing a lot of ideas from other directors I had worked with.

The ‘Mythbusters’ crew, we monitor the Discovery boards, we look for the new ideas that are being forwarded on those boards, and we keep track of what’s going on, we keep updated.

They’re not very good ideas, but at least they’re ideas!

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one.

I do preach the idea of individualism as in not adapting any kind of style or model other than that one of your own.

I have some ideas on how to fix that.

The idea of a portable kit that has everything you might need ignites something inside me. It’s like Batman’s utility belt.

One worth clinging to. But you don’t need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It’s not just an idea, it’s reality.