Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.

If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

It was not hard to persuade people that the market was sound; as always in such times they asked only that the dispiriting voices of doubt be muted and that there should be tolerably frequent expressions of confidence.

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.

It was Herbert Spencer, not Charles Darwin, who coined the phrase Survival of the Fittest.

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.