Ipse dixit
Do not wish for quick results, nor look for small advantages. If you seek quick results, you will not reach the ultimate goal. If you are led astray by small advantages, you will never accomplish great things.
- Confucius (550 bc)
To a wise man, the whole Earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.
- Democritus (450 bc)
Endless money forms the sinews of war.
- Cicero (44 bc)
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
- Charles Darwin (1859)
Each time the franc loses value, the Minister of Finance is convinced that the fact arises from everything but economic causes. He attributes it to the presence of foreigners in the corridors of the Bourse, to unwholesome and malign forces of speculation. The attitude is rather close to that of the witch doctor who attributes the illness of cattle to the ‘evil eye’, and the storm to an insufficient quantity of sacrifices made before some idol.
- JM Keynes, Tract on Monetary Reform (1924)
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
- Otto Rank
Water, rations and ammo almost depleted and troops becoming exhausted. Enemy on high ground dominate this position from both sides of the road and at dawn position will become untenable. I intend to attack.
- Captain P.K. Parbury (June 1941)
Nell'ora solenne che incombe sui destini della Patria ognuno riprenda il suo posto di dovere, di fede e di combattimento: nessuna deviazione deve essere tollerata, nessuna recriminazione essere consentita.
- Vittorio Emanuele III (July 1943)
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
- Albert Einstein (1952)
While governments can stop people from issuing money, they can hardly stop them from opening accounts in something (...) So I think we can forget about existing money and existing banks, and gradually open a system of accounts which will displace the government money. (...) I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, (…) all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.
- Friedrich Hayek (1984)
Are such things as securities and stock markets good or not? Are they dangerous? It is permitted to try them out, but it must be done with determination.
- Deng Xiaoping (Jan 1992)
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
- Stephen Hawking (2001)
The future is widely misunderstood.
- Ray Kurzweil (2005)
At this juncture the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.
- Ben Bernanke (March 2007)
It is hard for us, and without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions.
- Joe Cassano (Aug 2007)
Do they know it's coming, Hank?
Mr. President, we are going to move quickly and take them by surprise. The first sound they'll hear is their heads hitting the floor.
- Hank Paulson (Sept 2008)
Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the symbols. Our advice: Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
- Warren Buffett (2008)
A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind that loves diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.
- Charlie Munger
I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
- S. N. (31 Oct 2008)
Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.
- The Times (3 Jan 2009)
If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. [price of bitcoin: $ 0.08]
- S. N. (Jul 2010)
Il superamento della velocità della luce è una vittoria epocale per la ricerca scientifica di tutto il mondo. Alla costruzione del tunnel tra il Cern ed i laboratori del Gran Sasso, attraverso il quale si è svolto l'esperimento, l'Italia ha contribuito con uno stanziamento oggi stimabile intorno ai 45 milioni di euro.
- Maristella Gelmini (Sept 2011)
I worry very much about Mr Barnier. I met Mr Barnier when he was a Minister. He came to see us at the Treasury. He came down the corridor and I was watching him. I am a great fan of art and I was rather impressed that he stopped to look at every painting. I thought, this is a man with whom I share a common interest -- until I realised he was actually looking at his reflection in the glass on every painting, and adjusting his hair or his toupee. This to me is a man whom we should treat with a very long spoon. I hope the Minister will take due care in working with Mr Barnier.
- Lord Myners, in the House of Lords (Nov 2011)
The analysis confirms the theory of "cosmic inflation" -- that the newborn universe inflated a trillion-trillion-trillion-fold within a microsecond -- and suggests a bleak future of endless expansion to cold nothingness.
- Financial Times (22 March 2013)
The world is not limited by IQ. We are all limited by bravery and creativity.
- Astro Teller (March 2013)
I am hodling.
- GameKyuubi (18 Dec 2013)
"There used to be this guy called Vinny who worked on the floor of the stock exchange", said one big investor who had observed the market for a long time. "After the market closed Vinny would get into his Cadillac and drive out to his big house in Long Island. Now there is this guy called Vladimir who gets into his jet and flies to his estate in Aspen for the weekend. I used to worry a little about Vinny. Now I worry a lot about Vladimir".
- Michael Lewis, Flash boys (2014)
I have been concerned by the lack of transparency in these dark venues.
- Mary Jo White (June 2014)
I’ve always been afraid of the guy whose IQ is 190 and he thinks it’s 250.
- Charlie Munger (Sept 2014)
It takes this kind of remarkable human effort to overcome a world that isn't as anxious for you as you are for it. You have to be fundamentally delusional to get out there on the field of battle and make it happen.
- Stephen Schwarzman (Nov 2014)
I look for the type of guy in London who gets up at 7 o'clock on Sunday morning when his kids are still in bed and logs onto a poker site so that he can pick off the U.S. drunks coming home on Saturday night. I hired a guy like that. He usually clears 5 or 10 grand every Sunday morning before breakfast.
- Mike Platt
With [regard to] the brain, there isn't anything not computable.
- Demis Hassabis (Jan 2015)
All the bankers did was copy what everyone else did. If everyone else ran off a bloody cliff, they'd run right off a cliff with them. If there was a giant pile of gold sitting in the middle of the room and nobody was picking it up, they wouldn't pick it up, either.
- Elon Musk
The signals that we have been trading without interruption for fifteen years make no sense. Otherwise someone else would have found them.
- Bob Mercer
I don't want my tombstone to just say he had really good internal rates of return.
- Jon Gray
Before they start telling us what to do, they jolly well ought to sort their own house out.
- Theresa May (Nov 2016)
Bitcoin is the real Occupy Wall Street.
- Julian Assange (Dec 2017)
Bitcoin is a publicly available database with limited spaces which uses cryptography to secure entries that you can buy and sell.
- Beautyon
The PM has not deigned to grace us with his presence today. But I’m reassured that despite his pledge, he is not to be found anywhere in a ditch.
- Jeremy Corbyn (Oct 2019)
The truth has two big problems: the truth tends to be complicated and the truth tends to be painful.
- Yuval Harari