Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.

A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water.

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.

Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves.

Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required.

The trouble with all these other countries is they're all being run by foreigners.

Let there be a wide breadth of possible ways to create.

Without focusing and getting to clarity you cannot lead. You cannot motivate. You cannot plan. You cannot communicate.

I think we've got to understand the complexity of the world that we are facing and no place is more so than in the Middle East.

Pol Pot will surrender, be captured or commit suicide.

[Responding to trick query about whether she believed herself in a state of grace:] If I am not, may it please God to bring me into it; if I am, may He preserve me in it.

Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.

They say everyone needs something to love.

If one desires to receive one must first give. This is called profound understanding.

Decide promptly, but never give any reasons for your decisions. Your decisions may be right, but your reasons are sure to be wrong.