Hope sustains life, but misplaced hope prolongs recessions.

Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying 'yes' too frequently.

In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices.

Hope sustains life, but misplaced hope prolongs recessions.

To suppose that the value of a common stock is determined purely by a corporation's earnings discounted by the relevant interest rates and adjusted for the marginal tax rate is to forget that people have burned witches, gone to war on a whim, risen to the defense of Joseph Stalin and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians had landed.

Debt is always repaid, either by the borrower or by the lender.

It is an axiom nowadays that no bank fails for lack of capital; unprofitable lending is always the underlying cause.