Alan Greenspan

I get so engaged when I have a problem you cannot solve that I just cannot break away from what I am doing - I keep thinking and thinking and cannot stop. ”

The problem is you cannot have free global trade with highly restrictive, regulated domestic markets. ”

There's no other job in public life that is like chairman of the Fed. ”

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. ”

We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lock-boxes' around the trust fund real. ”

Every economy exists, no matter what the level of democracy, has elements of crony capitalism. It's - given human nature and given the democratic structures, which we all, I assume, adhere to, that is an inevitable consequence. ”

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion. ”

I'm not denying that monopolies are terrible things, but I am denying that it is readily easy to resolve them through legislation of that nature. ”

Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff. ”

To succeed, you will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills. ”