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Banking

1. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury…For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) Greek philosopher and scientist. “Sort” refers to “sort of money-making.” Politics (4th century B.C.), bk. 1

 

2. Adventure is the life of commerce but caution, I had almost said timidity, is the life of banking.

Walter Bagehot (1826-77) British economist and journalist. Lombard Street (1873)

 

3.Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.

Walter Bagehot (1826-77) British economist and journalist. Lombard Street (1873)

 

4. Thus English capital runs as surely and instantly where it is most wanted and where there is the most to be made of it, as water runs to find its own level.

Walter Bagehot (1826-77) British economist and journalist. On the role of the London banks and financial markets. Lombard Street (1873)

 

5. They’re just cold-blooded fish sitting at the top of some bloody great building looking at stats-and they’ve got handbooks.

Peter De Savary (b.1944) British entrepreneur. Referring to investment bankers. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1998)

 

6. Our joint objective is that bankers should become uniformly acceptable as wise counselors and friends of the community as a whole and not merely as associates of particular sections of society.

Indira Gandhi (1917-84) Indian prime minister. Speech (September 30, 1969)

 

7. Ensuring that our nation’s financial system works for all Americans also means promoting access to high quality financial services for all Americans. Despite the strong national economy, 10 million American families still do not have a bank account.

Gary Gensler (b.1957) U.S. economist and politician. Speech, American Bankers Association Government Relations Council (September 19, 2000)

 

8. There may be no greater challenges and no greater opportunities for the banking industry than those presented by rapidly changing technology. No industry is more suited to garnering the benefits of e-commerce.

Gary Gensler (b.1957) U.S. economist and politician. Speech, American Bankers Association Government Relations Council (September 19, 2000)

 

9. A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.

Bob Hope (b.1903) U.S. comedian and motion picture actor. Quoted in “The Tyranny of Forms,” Life in the Crystal Palace (Alan Harrington; 1959)

 

10. Through the fat years, the bankers were always right there by our side. But in bad time they backed off in a hurry.

Lee Iacocca (b.1924) U.S. president of Ford Motor Company, chairman and C.E.O. of Chrysler Corporation. The banks failed to support Chrysler when it was on the verge of Bankruptcy; the company was eventually saved by a government loan. Iacocca: An Autobiography (1984)

 

11. Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) U.S. president. Letter to Elbridge Gerry (January 26, 1799)

 

12. I’ve come to the belief that banks are not in the business of banking. They’re in the business of collecting fees.

Patrick C. Kelly (b.1947) U.S. sales executive. Inc. (October 1995)

 

13. Financial institutions such as insurance and banking were a powerful presence in the American economy at the turn of the century, and women…became office workers in record numbers between 1870 and 1930.

Angel Kwolek-Folland, U.S. author. Engendering Business (1994)

 

14. Except for the con men borrowing money they shouldn’t get and the widows who have to visit with the handsome young men in the trust department, no same person ever enjoyed visiting a bank.

Martin Mayer (b.1928) U.S. author and journalist. The Money Bazaars (1984)

 

15. Quite a few banks have cleaned up their act rather than risk public exposure. In the process, they have discovered that there is profit to be made in lending to residents in undeserved neighbourhoods.

Ralph Nader (b.1934) U.S. lawyer and consumer-rights campaigner. “Digital Democracy in Action,” Forbes (February 12, 1996)

 

16. To the chagrin of banks and other financial corporations, public interest groups…are using the new technology to plow through mountains of data to detect who gets mortgage loans and who gets shut out.

Ralph Nader (b.1934) U.S. lawyer and consumer-rights campaigner. “Digital Democracy in Action,” Forbes (February 12, 1996)

 

17. Bankers are like everybody else, except richer.

Ogden Nash (1902-71) U.S. humorist and writer. “ Bankers are like everybody else, except richer,” The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash (1962)

 

18. I want to be a banker

Like the banker at Banker’s Trust.

…I want to play at Banker’s Trust like a

Hippety-hoppety bunny,

And best of all, oh best of all,

With really truly money.

Ogden Nash (1902-71) U.S. humorist and writer. “If He Were Alive Today, Mayhap Mr. Morgan Would sit on the Midget’s Lap,” There’s Always Another Windmill (1968)

 

19. I doubt if there is any occupation which is more consistently and unfairly demeaned, degraded, denounced, and deplored than banking.

William Proxmire (b.1915) U.S. politician. Quoted in Fortune (October 31, 1983)

 

20. The distinctive function of the banker begins as soon as he uses the money of others.

David Ricardo (1772-1823) British economist. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817)

 

21. Under the banner of deregulation and total faith in the marketplace we’re impairing our greatest assets: the credibility of our capital markets and the faith in our financial institutions…The growing feeling today is that the capital markets have become the property of insiders and speculators.

Felix Rohatyn (b.1928) U.S. investment company executive. Wall Street Journal (March 1985)

 

22. A banker is a man who lends another man the money of a third man.

Guy De Rothschild (b.1909) French banker, Interview, Sunday Citizen (March 21, 1965)

 

23. Behind all its global responsibilities and impersonal style banking is still a “people business”…it may be the most personal business of all for it always depends on the original concept of credit, meaning trust.

Anthony Sampson (b.1926) British author and journalist. The Moneylenders: Bankers in a Dangerous World (1981), ch. 1

 

24. It has been the bankers’ destiny…to find themselves on the dangerous edge of the world, pointing up the contradictions and cross-purposes. They are not often loved for it.

Anthony Sampson (b.1926) British author and journalist. The Moneylenders: Bankers in a Dangerous World (1981), ch. 22

 

25. Before October, 1929, no one objected to short sellers except their own families. The families objected to going bankrupt.

Fred Schwed (1910?-1966) U.S. author. Where Are The Customers’ Yachts? (1940)

 

26. Bankers need a political sense, a second vision, just as sailors need a meteorological sense.

Fritz Stern (b.1926) U.S. historian and academic. Gold and Iron (1977)

 

27. I learned then what a bunch of gangsters the banks are. They really are gangsters.

Alan Sugar (b.1947) British entrepreneur, founder and chairman of Amstrad electronics company. Referring to his experience during takeover negotiations. Quoted in The Amstrad Story (David Thomas; 1990)

 

28. It’s one of life’s ironies that the more you can prove that you don’t need a loan, the better your chances usually are of getting one. This is especially true for start-up businesses.

Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation Speech. “The Entrepreneur and the Professional Manager: Getting the Best of Both Worlds” (1998)

 

29. All these financiers, all the little gnomes of Zurich and the other financial centres, about whom we keep on hearing.

Harold Wilson (1916-95) British prime minister. Speech, House of Commons, British Parliament (November 12, 1956)

 

30. Whether we like it or nor mankind now has a completely integrated international financial and informational marketplace capable of moving money and ideas to any place on this planet in minutes.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. Speech, International Monetary Conference, London (June 11, 1979)

 

31. Our banking system grew by accident; and whenever something happens by accident, it becomes a religion.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. BusinessWeek (January 20, 1975)

 

32. Information about money has become almost as important as money itself. The competitive advantage of the banks used to be that they knew more about their customers than anyone else. Now…that knowledge can be had at the push of a button. The guy with the competitive advantage is the one with the best technology.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. November 1985. Quoted in The Financial Revolution: The Big Bang Worldwide (Adrian Hamilton; 1986), ch. 2

 

33. In its simplest terms, this scientific advance in the art of communication has created…an entirely new system of world finance based on the incredibly rapid flow of information…I would argue that the information standard has replaced the gold standard as the basis of world finance.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S.banker. Quoted in The Financial Revolution: The Big Bang Worldwide (Adrian Hamilton; 1986), ch. 2