There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.

But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.

Complexity and obscurity have professional value - they are the academic equivalents of apprenticeship rules in the building trades. They exclude the outsiders, keep down the competition, preserve the image of a privileged or priestly class. The man who makes things clear is a scab. He is criticized less for his clarity than for his treachery.

The huge capacity to purchase submission that goes with any large sum of money, well, this we have. This is a power of which we should all be aware.

Even in such a time of madness as the late twenties, a great many man in Wall Street remained quite sane. But they also remained very quiet. The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them.

Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

I feel very angry when I think of brilliant, or even interesting, women whose minds are wasted on a home. Better have an affair. It isn't permanent and you keep your job.