“If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.”

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.

There is no intrinsic reason for the scarcity of capital.

It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens.

One’s knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.

The key to selecting the winner isn’t choosing the face you think is the most beautiful but rather the face other people will pick

Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.

To our generation Einstein has been made to become a double symbol – a symbol of the mind travelling in the cold regions of space, and a symbol of the brave and generous outcast, pure in heart and cheerful of spirit.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.

I’d rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.

The Economic Problem, the problem of want and poverty and the economic struggle between classes and nations, is nothing but a frightful muddle, a transitory and unnecessary muddle.

It is a good thing to make mistakes so long as you’re found out quickly.

The considerations upon which expectations of prospective yields are based are partly existing facts which we can assume to be known more or less for certain, and partly future events which can only be forecasted with more or less confidence.

Well, when I get new information, I rethink my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?

The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.

Banks have a new image. Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?

Putting $10.00 in the bank or talking to your stockbroker about your investment plans are activities that will move you toward your goal.

It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it.

Given our inevitably incomplete knowledge about key structural aspects of our ever-changing economy and the sometimes asymmetric costs or benefits of particular outcomes, a central bank.

Indeed, better risk management may be the only truly necessary element of success in banking.

I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.

A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage.