Bernard Baruch
From Wikiquote
Bernard Mannes Baruch (19 August 1870 - 20 June 1965) was an American financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising Democratic presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters.
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- America has never forgotten — and never will forget — the nobler things that brought her into being and that light her path — the path that was entered upon only one hundred and fifty years ago ... How young she is! It will be centuries before she will adopt that maturity of custom — the clothing of the grave — that some people believe she is already fitted for.
- Address on accepting The Churchman Award, New York (23 May 1944)
- Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work out salvation ... Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction.
- Address to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (14 June 1946)
- Let us not be deceived — we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success. The peace of the world is the hope and the goal of our political system; it is the despair and defeat of those who stand against us.
- Speech to the South Carolina Legislature, Columbia, SC (16 April 1947)
- He said that the phrase "cold war" was suggested to him by H. B. Swope, editor of the New York World; the term had earlier been used by George Orwell (1945).
- Although the shooting war is over, we are in the midst of a cold war which is getting warmer.
- Speech before the Senate’s Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program (1948)
- Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter.
- Often quoted response to Igor Cassini, a popular society columnist for the New York Journal American, when asked how he handled the seating arrangements for all those who attended his dinner parties, as quoted in Shake Well Before Using: A New Collection of Impressions and Anecdotes Mostly Humorous (1948) by Bennett Cerf, p. 249; the full response was "I never bother about that. Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter." This anecdote is also quoted online at Chiasmus.com and has also become part of a larger expression, which has been commonly attributed to Dr. Seuss, even in print, but without citation of a specific work : "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
- There are no such things as incurable, there are only things for which man has not found a cure.
- Speech (30 April 1954)
- To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
- On his 85th birthday, as quoted in The Observer [London] (21 August 1955)
- I am quite sure that in the hereafter she will take me by the hand and lead me to my proper seat.
- Regarding a childhood teacher, as quoted in News summaries (29 August 1955)
- I am interested in physical medicine because my father was. I am interested in medical research because I believe in it. I am interested in arthritis because I have it.
- As quoted in The New York Post (1 May 1959)
- Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.
- As quoted in Meyer Berger’s New York (1960)
- A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader.
- As quoted in his obituary, New York Times (21 June 1965)
- I'm not smart. I try to observe. Millions saw the apple fall but Newton was the one who asked why.
- New York Post (24 June 1965)
- Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible...as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead (originally a quote from the poet Schiller, and quoted by Baruch in his Foreword to the 1932 version of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay, LL.D. (originally published in 1841)).
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- A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.
- Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars.
- Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong about his facts.
- I made my money by selling too soon.
- I never lost money by turning a profit.
- If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right. If you don't get all the facts, it can't be right.
- In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.
- The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.
- We can't cross that bridge until we come to it, but I always like to lay down a pontoon ahead of time.
- We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.
- Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it.
- I am a speculator. The word comes from the Latin speculari, which means "observe." I observe.
- "Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."
- "Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why."
- "Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking."
- "Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought."
- "During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think."
- "To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am."
- "One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed."
- "When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell."
- "Never follow the crowd."
- "Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock."
- "If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong."
- "If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace."
[edit] Debated or Misattributed
- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- Also attributed to Abraham Maslow, Michael Polanyi. and Mark Twain; see Wiktionary page for details.
- When asked what the market would do, replied It will fluctuate
- Widely attributed to Baruch, this quote actually originated with J. P. Morgan.
