There is a well-established conviction that the central banks always do what is necessary to keep the system going and then afterwards you then take care of the legal aspects. In a crisis, you simply do not have time to think about such concerns for too long.

It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).

We in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are.

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

I'm not doing my philanthropic work out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.

It is better to have a cat and mouse game where the cat has the upper hand than a cat and mouse game where the mice are ruling. Because the latter means that the market participants are given free range. That was actually the big misconception of our national hero Ronald Reagan, who always talked about the magic of the market.

I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership qualities, but she is leading Europe in the wrong direction.