Alan Greenspan

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life. ”

I always believed in animal spirits. It's not their existence that is new. It's the fact that they are not random events, but actually replicate in-bred qualities of human nature which create those animal spirits. ”

The purpose of a politician is to be a leader. A politician has to lead. Otherwise he's just a follower. ”

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. ”

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University. ”

The culture of Greece is not the same as the culture of Germany, and to fuse them into a single unit is extremely difficult. ”

At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn't. Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe's excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits. ”

We really can't forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can, but we really can't. ”

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. ”

Since 1948 I have spent every single day thinking how the economic and political worlds have changed. ”