The standard of living of the average American has to decline.

The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM.

I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence.

It was probably a mistake to allow gold to rise so high.

When people begin anticipating inflation, it doesn't do you any good anymore, because any benefit of inflation comes from the fact that you do better than you thought you were going to do.

When I hear complaints about less liquidity, remember there is such a thing as too much liquidity.

A global economy requires a global currency.

Double-digit inflation is a terrible thing - and it got up to 14 or 15 percent on a monthly basis for a while, shortly after I became chairman of the Fed.

I am suspicious of the idea of a new paradigm, to use that word, an entirely new structure of the economy.

It was the biggest inflation and the most sustained inflation that the United States had ever had.

If, at the end of the day, we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes.

Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears.

Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart.

With each passing moment I'm becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating.

All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.

I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.

Those who boast about being "brutally honest" are usually more brutal than honest.

Maintenance is terribly important.

We all fail. But none of us fail all the time.

Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package our aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart.

Because no man wants to be a coward in front of a cheese.