The modern mind dislikes gold because it blurts out unpleasant truths.

Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can't bother about where they're going.

Things economic and social move by their own momentum and the ensuing situations compel individuals and groups to behave in certain ways whatever they may wish to do-not indeed by destroying their freedom of choice but by shaping the choosing mentalities and by narrowing the list of possibilities from which to choose.

Profit is the payment you get when you take advantage of change.

Nothing is so treacherous as the obvious.

The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare—all this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases. He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else.

Pessimistic visions about almost anything always strike the public as more erudite than optimistic ones