Money is a tool, but most of us have a more complicated relationship with it than that. These quotes cover saving, spending, investing, debt, and the surprisingly emotional decisions we make about something that is supposed to be rational.
“My real adversary has no name, no face, no party. It will never be elected, yet it governs - the adversary is the world of finance.”
“I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.”
“Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If you look at all the causes of the recession, problems in mortgage markets, the problems in the banking sector, the problems in government finance in countries like Greece, none of those problems were in present Canada.”
“I made my money by selling too soon.”
“You want to put out a TV show? If you have the money to do it on your own, by yourself, and you have a TV network, you can do it by yourself. But the nature of the beast is, art needs finance. That's how this industry works. So until the Internet becomes our source of entertainment - and watch it, I believe it will - this is how things go.”
“Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.”
“In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.”
“The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.”
“My adversary is the world of finance.”
“It is incumbent upon each of us to improve spending and savings practices to ensure our own individual financial security and preserve the collective economic well-being of our great society.”
“We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.”
“I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money.”
“I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds.”
“The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.”
“Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world - out of six billion people, more than three billion - do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.”
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”