Finance Ministers

"The swarm-like appearance of new combinations easily and necessarily explains the fundamental features of periods of boom."

"The more the process of development becomes familiar and a mere matter of calculation to all concerned, and the weaker the obstacles become in the course of time, the less the “leadership” that will be needed to call forth innovations. Hence the less pronounced will become the swarm-like appearance of entrepreneurs and the milder the cyclical movement."

"Many things may be copied by the latter; the example as such also acts upon them; and many achievements directly serve other branches too [...]."

"Since as we have seen the entrepreneurial qualification is something which, like many other qualities, is distributed in an ethnically homogeneous group according to the law of error, the number of individuals who satisfy progressively diminishing standards in this respect continually increases. Hence, neglecting exceptional cases — of which the existence of a few Europeans in a negro population would be an example — with the progressive lightening of the task continually more people can and will become entrepreneurs, wherefore the successful appearance of an entrepreneur is followed by the appearance not simply of some others, but of ever greater numbers, though progressively less qualified."

"Only a few people have these qualities of leadership and only a few in such a situation, that is a situation which is not itself already a boom, can succeed in this direction. However, if one or a few have advanced with success many of the difficulties disappear. Others can then follow these pioneers, as they will clearly do under the stimulus of the success now attainable. Their success again makes it easier, through the increasingly complete removal of the obstacles analysed in the second chapter, for more people to follow suit, until finally the innovation becomes familiar and the acceptance of it a matter of free choice."

"Why do entrepreneurs appear, not continuously, that is singly in every appropriately chosen interval, but in clusters? Exclusively because the appearance of one or a few entrepreneurs facilitates the appearance of others, and these the appearance of more, in ever-increasing numbers."

"When we inquire about the general forms of economic phenomena, about their uniformities, or about a key to understanding them, we ipso facto indicate that we wish at that moment to consider them as something to be investigated, to be sought for, as the “unknown”; and that we wish to trace them to the relatively “known,” just as any science deals with its object of inquiry."

"Gentlemen, you are worried about the depression[sic]. You should not be. For capitalism, a depression is a good, cold douche."

"This civilization is rapidly passing away, however. Let us rejoice or else lament the fact as much as everyone of us likes; but do not let us shut our eyes to it."

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie."

"Economists have never allowed their analysis to be influenced by psychologists of their time, but have always framed for themselves such assumptions about psychical processes as they have thought it desirable to make."

"In all cases, not only in the two which we have analyzed, recovery came of itself. There is certainly this much of truth in the talk about the recuperative powers of our industrial system. But this is not all: our analysis leads us to believe that recovery is sound only if it does come of itself. For any revival which is merely due to artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depressions undone and adds, to an undigested remnant of maladjustment, new maladjustment of its own which has to be liquidated in turn, thus threatening business with another crisis ahead. Particularly, our story provides a presumption against remedial measures which work through money and credit. For the trouble is fundamentally not with money and credit, and policies of this class are particularly apt to keep up, and add to, maladjustment, and to produce additional trouble in the future."

"To be a young Gaullist is to be a revolutionary!"

"Irritable, rash, impetuous, disloyal, ungrateful, and un-French."

"What happened today... is of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system," Sarkozy said outside the court building. [...] If they absolutely want me to sleep in jail, I will sleep in jail, but with my head held high."

"As the holder of the presidency of the European Union, I considered it important for Europe to condemn firmly these blind, cowardly and inhuman attacks. On this occasion, I wish to assure you of the full solidarity of the 27 member-states of the EU and their determination to fight alongside the Indian government to eradicate the scourge of terrorism."

"" "Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to jail for corruption" (MARCH 1, 2021)"

"This case has been for me the stations of the cross. But if that was the price to pay for the truth to come out, I am ready to accept it … I still have confidence in the justiceof our country."

"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar."

"L'islamisation de l'Europe est inéluctable."

"I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada."

"What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation."

"Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family."

"Casse toi alors, pauvre con."

"The French like burgers, Madonna and Miami Vice."

"If living in France bothers some people, they should feel free to leave the country."

"I want to issue a call to everyone in the world who believes in the values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, humanism, to all those who are persecuted by tyranny, by dictatorships."

"If you come to France and you wear a veil, if you go to one of the administrative buildings, then that's not acceptable. If you don't want your wife to be examined by a male doctor, then you're not welcome here. France is a country that's open."

"I understand that people might be poor if they don't have any work, but I don't accept that someone is poor if they've worked really hard."

"We live in a world where people don't all have the same scruples, where all blows can be given, and where, in order to down somebody, all means can be used. Nothing will lead me astray from the path that I have chosen."

"During the course of their negotiations, the British government made it clear that although they would concede Dominion status to Ireland, they would not coerce the newly created statelet of Northern Ireland into an all-Ireland republic or relinquish the strategically important naval bases. To press home the significance of these ports, Lloyd George invited the Royal Navy's most distinguished officer, Admiral Beatty, to impress upon Michael Collins their importance to Britain. According to Winston Churchill, during the course of these discussions with Admiral Beatty, Collins commented "Of course you must have the ports- they are necessary for your life." Collins knew that in the recent war Britain had lost over 11 million tons of merchant and naval shipping. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Collins was no doctrinaire nationalist but a courageous pragmatist who had a clear grasp of the strategic value of these naval facilities to Britain. He seemed to appreciate that the British could not and would not concede on the issue of naval facilities in Ireland."

"My Dear Miss Collins- Don't let them make you miserable about it: how could a born soldier die better than at the victorious end of a good fight, falling to the shot of another Irishman- a damned fool, but all the same an Irishman who thought he was fighting for Ireland- 'A Roman to a Roman'? I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal as to snivel over his valiant death. So treat up your mourning and hang up your brightest colours in his honour; let us all praise God that he did not die in a snuffy bed of a trumpery cough, weakened by age, and saddened by the disappointments that would have attended his work had he lived."

"In Glasnevin cemetery Michael is at rest in the plot reserved for the dead of Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish armed forces, from the civil war right down to soldiers killed on active service with the UN peace-keeping forces in many parts of the world. Somehow it seems fitting that Michael lies here among the warrior dead of Ireland."

"Seldom in the history of any country has a single unlucky bullet so utterly altered the course of events. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that Ireland suffers the consequences to this day. Had Michael lived, it is highly probable that he would have brought the civil war to a speedy conclusion and succeeded in healing the breach with the North, leading t the removal of partition which few politicians, from Lloyd George and Churchill downwards, regarded as anything other than a purely temporary measure in 1922. After Michael's death, however, the South had no one with the breadth of vision and the negotiating skills to tackle Sir James Craig, and as time passed, the breach between North and South widened. Michael would almost certainly have prevented the Ulster boundary crisis of 1925, with its tragic consequences for Anglo-Irish relations over the ensuing seven decades. This arose when the report of the Boundary Commission was published, revealing that not an inch of Northern Ireland was to be ceded to the Free State, despite the wishes of at least a third of the inhabitants of the Six Counties. This bombshell reopened old wounds and almost triggered off a renewal of civil war in southern Ireland."

"From the beginning Michael was targeted by the anti-Treaty faction and as the sessions wore on the issue became not so much the Treaty itself, but the personal standing of Mick Collins. In the end, and to a very large extent, the voting reflected the love or hatred for him- there could be no half measures- of the individual deputies. During the stormy sessions, Michael was for the most part calm and dignified, even stoical at times; but now and then his famous temper would explode. Strangely enough, or perhaps characteristically, what seemed to rouse his ire most of all was the inability of deputies to arrive for each session on time, there by delaying the start of proceedings. With immense forcefulness he reminded them that punctuality was a great thing. Two factors were immediately apparent: the disagreement was set to divide opinion right across the country, and if Michael were the chief target of opprobrium he was not going to take it lying down."

"A concern for others would be an outstanding characteristic of Michael Collins to the end of his life, and it is idle to speculate that some of the worst excesses of the civil war, perpetrated after his death, might have been avoided. There are also many anecdotes that illustrate his total absence of fear, even as a very small child. These stories, however, probably reflect the attitudes of the raconteur rather than revealing the truth about Michael; for an absence of fear is a dangerous quality and this, indeed, may have been ultimately his undoing. Certainly, the story told by his brother Johnny, of the toddler wandering off and subsequently being found asleep amid the straw on the floor of the stall housing a vicious stallion which only old Michael John could control, suggests foolhardiness born of ignorance. Astonishingly, little Michael was found curled up, fast asleep, between the animal's hooves."

"He passed the great test for any adult in that children loved him."

"I was allowed to paint him in death. Any grossness in his features, even the peculiar dent near the point of his nose, had disappeared. He might have been Napoleon in marble as he lay in his uniform, covered by the Free State flag, with a crucifix on his breast. Four soldiers stood around the bier. The stillness was broken at long intervals by someone entering the chapel on tiptoe, kissing the brow, and then slipping to the door where I could hear a burst of suppressed grief. One woman kissed the dead lips, making it hard for me to continue my work."

"Where was Michael Collins during the Great War? He would have been worth a dozen brass-hats."

"As Collins was only thirty-one at the time of his death, there has been much debate about whether he would have matured int a major statesman if he had lived, or whether he would have become a military dictator. He had shown considerable impatience with politicians and negotiations, often telling friends that he had little aptitude for politics. He did have definite administrative talents and great gifts of communication. He had demonstrated no desire to establish a military dictatorship. Collins had little consciousness of any need for wide-ranging social and economic change, despite being a severe critic of some aspects of Irish society. Major parts of his speeches were taken up with a simple articulation of Gaelic revivalism. Although they were genuinely alarmed about the possible consequences of Collins' death, British politicians and civil servants were to be relieved that they no longer had to deal with what Sir Samuel Hoare described as Collins' 'film-star attitudinising'. They were to contrast Cosgrave's straightforwardness and reliability with Collins' stridency. Anglo-Irish relations were to improve under Cosgrave and O'Higgins. The Northern government had every reason to be grateful for Collins' death. Collins could, perhaps, have helped to heal wounds within the Twenty-Six Counties- many believed that he would not have allowed an executions policy. He might well, however, have increased tensions between North and South in the post-war period. Meanwhile, for many old volunteers in the army the loss of their leader meant that their position appeared to be threatened, and it increased their fears that the old republican ideals were to be ignored."

"The government had lost its one popular leader- the man who had made the Treaty's acceptance a probability. He has been all too easily glamourised, both by contemporaries and by historians; yet he remains, of all modern Irish national heroes, the one with whom ordinary people feel the greatest affinity. De Valera's appeal lay partly in his detachment and his remoteness; Collins, by contrast, was a back-slapper and a drinking companion. Both Cosgrave and Mulcahy were to admit that they also were vastly different characters from Collins- they could not hope to achieve Collins' personal appeal. Collins had dominated the army and government so much that he was clearly going to be difficult to replace. Though possessing much of Collins' dynamism and strength of purpose, O'Higgins was never to be remotely as popular."

"Collins' death can be put down to his devil-may-care attitude- his decision to journey through hostile territory in a large convoy, the inadequate choice of the members of the convoy, and the tactics he adopted in the ambush. For all the debate about ballistics and entry and exit wounds, it matters more that Collins was killed than how he was killed. Concentration on the events at Béal na mBláth has, moreover, often meant a failure to place them in the overall context of the war."

"He was the man whose matchless energy, whose indomitable will, carried Ireland through the terrible crisis; and though I have not now, and never had, an ambition about either political affairs or history, if my name is to go down in history I want it to be associated with the name of Michael Collins."

"His engaging personality won friendships even amongst those who first met him as foes, and to all who met him the news of his death comes as a personal sorrow."

"It was widely believed there was a reward of £10,000 for the capture of Collins, which was as much as most Irish people could then expect to earn in a lifetime. The Black and Tans, for instance, were considered well paid, but the supposed reward amounted to more than they could earn in fifty years, working seven days a week and fifty-two weeks a year. As a result there was always the danger someone might betray Collins for the money."

"Collins was a reluctant delegate to the negotiations that produced the Anglo Irish treaty, but accepted their outcome and was appointed chairman and minister for finance of the Provisional Government responsible for the establishment of the new Irish state. He regarded the treaty only as a means toward obtaining a 32-county republic. His conspiratorial nature came to the fore in his secret arrangement with the anty-treatyites to attack Northern Ireland while officially recognizing it. He became commander-in-chief of the Free State army when the Irish Civil War broke out, and was killed on 22 August 1922 at Beal na Blath, Co. Cork, during an inspection tour of the south. Generally seen as a man of action, he commanded great respect, admiration, and loyalty among those around him. He has been much idealized since his death, often described as the man who singe-handedly defeated the British forces. This view has been challenged in more recent writing. The widespread admiration for him has nevertheless, fuelled much speculation about what Ireland would have been like if he had lived. Such speculation emphasizes his view of the treaty as a stepping stone, his progressive social views, and his potential to reunite a divided republican movement."

"Republican and statesman. Born in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Collins moved to London in 1906 where he worked as a clerk in the Post Office and later for a firm of stockbrokers. While in London he became involved with the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He returned to Ireland in 1915 and fought in the General Post Office during the rising of 1916. On his release he became increasingly influential in Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers. He was elected to the first Dáil for South Cork and for Tyrone, first becoming minister for home affairs and from April 1919 minister for finance. In the latter function he organized the Dáil Loan which financed the republicans' alternative government. As director of organization and intelligence for the IRA he played a leading part in the co-ordination of the military campaign in the Anglo-Irish War. His intelligence network in Dublin was renowned, and he was responsible for the 'Squad' which eliminated government intelligence. His success and determination to get things done brought him into conflict with some other leaders such as de Valera and Cathal Brugha."

"De Valera paused before replying to the suggestion. It had been his Karma to live a long and distinguished public life. Although he was then in his eighty-fifth year he was looking forward to a second seven-year term as President of Ireland. But he knew that before the bar of history his name and fame were inextricably linked with a man whose allotted span had been destined to be but a third of his own. He knew that the story of Eamon de Valera could not be told without that of Michael Collins. Already he had embarked on what he knew in his heart was a futile effort to influence the record for the benefit of posterity. His newspaper and political empires had published innumerable favourable articles, histories and recollections. And in the years ahead he planned to ensure that much more favourable comment and chronology would be collated and set down. He had fashioned a vigorous dialectic of de Valerism that would bulwark him against critical re-appraisal long into the future. But de Valera was a realist, a man whose doodlings on the back of documents took the form of mathematical symbols. He realised only too well that his party, his newspapers, his Constitution even, had grown out of his opposition to Michael Collins and the resultant civil war. He knew that eventually, in the truthful telling of history, two and two would make four. Torn between his own clarity of vision and the myths he had spun around himself, de Valera struggled painfully for words to express himself. Then he said, 'I can't see my way to becoming Patron of the Michael Collins Foundation. It's my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Collins and it will be recorded at my expense.' He could be right."

"What would have happened if Michael Collins had lived? This again is a question asked incessantly in Ireland and though I have already dealt exhaustively with questions of speculation, and hesitate to weary the reader with issues which, by definition, must be totally matters of opinion, some evaluation is called for. Obviously he had a greater grasp of economics than his contemporaries and would have brought more drive, efficiency and imagination to bear upon the task of building up the country after the civil war than did anyone in any government or party that came after him. My opinion, and it has to be based purely on speculation, is that Ireland would have benefited enormously had he lived. Unlike de Valera whose talent lay in getting and holding power, Collins asked himself the question, 'All this for what?', and tried to provide the answers. However practical or impractical his recorded thoughts may have been they were the thoughts of a still-young man, capable of great development; a man who, in the eye of the storm, was able to take time to try to plot a course for his people and his country."

"Dr. Cagney, who had served through the Great War and had 'a wide knowledge of bullet wounds' told McGarry that Collins was killed by a .303 rifle bullet. The bullet entered behind the left ear, making a small entrance wound, and exited above the left ear making 'a ragged wound' on the left side of his head. Collins' long hair hid the entrance wound. It was his fate to die, almost accidentally, in his home county, at the hands of men who admired him, in one of the most avoidable, badly organized ambushes of the period. Any one of his assailants could have fired the fatal shot. None of them would have been proud to do so."