Marriner Eccles, Chair of the Federal Reserve, 1934-1948, one of the unsung heroes of the Great Depression in the US.

Below is from a Hearing before the Committee on Finance US Senate, February 1933.

• Before effective action can be taken to stop the devastating effects of the depression, it must be recognized that the breakdown of our present economic system is due to the failure of our political and financial leadership to intelligently deal with the money problem. In the real world there is no cause nor reason for the unemployment with its resultant destitution and suffering of fully one-third of our entire population. We have all and more of the material wealth which we had at the peak of our prosperity in the year 1929. Our people need and want everything which our abundant facilities and resources are able to provide for them.
• The problem of production has been solved, and we need no further capital accumulation for the present, which could only be utilized in further increasing our productive facilities or extending further foreign credits. We have a complete economic plant able to supply a superabundance of not only all of the necessities of our people, but the comforts and luxuries as well.
• Our problem, then, becomes one purely of distribution. This can only be brought about by providing purchasing power sufficiently adequate to enable the people to obtain the consumption goods which we, as a nation, are able to produce. The economic system can serve no other purpose and expect to survive.
• If our problem is then the result of the failure of our money system to properly function, which to-day is generally recognized, we then must turn to the consideration of the necessary corrective measures to be brought about in that field; otherwise, we can only expect to sink deeper in our dilemma and distress, with possible revolution, with social disintegration, with the world in ruins, the network of its financial obligations in shreds, with the very basis of law and order shattered. Under such a condition nothing but a primitive society is possible.
• The nineteenth century economics will no longer serve our purpose— an economic age 150 years old has come to an end. The orthodox capitalistic system of uncontrolled individualism, with its free competition, will no longer serve our purpose. We must think in terms of the scientific, technological, interdependent machine age, which can only survive and function under a modified capitalistic system controlled and regulated from the top by government.
• Money has no utility or economic value except to serve as a medium of exchange.
• The debt structure has obtained its present astronomical proportions due to an unbalanced distribution of wealth production as measured in buying power during our years of prosperity. Too much of the product of labor was diverted into capital goods, and as a result what seemed to be our prosperity was maintained on a basis of abnormal credit both at home and abroad.
• This naturally reduced the demand for goods of all kinds, bringing about what appeared to be overproduction, but what in reality was underconsumption measured in terms of the real world and not the money world.
• Why was it that during the war when there was no depression we did not insist upon balancing the Budget by sufficient taxation of our surplus income instead of using Government credit to the extent of $27,000,000,000? Why was it that we heard nothing of the necessity of balancing the Federal Budget in order to maintain the Government credit when we had a deficit of $9,000,000,000 in 1918 and $13,000,000,000 in 1919? Why was it that there was no unemployment at that time and an insufficient amount of money as a medium of exchange?
• Why resort to inflation of the sort referred to when prices can be increased and business revived on the basis of our present money system? We have nearly one and a half billion currency more in circulation at the present time than we had at the peak of 1929, and under our present money system we are able to increase this by several billion more without resorting to any of the three inflationary measures popularly advocated. There is sufficient money available in our present system to adequately adjust our present price structure. Our price structure depends more upon the velocity of money than it does upon the volume.
• I repeat there is plenty of money to-day to bring about a restoration of prices, but the chief trouble is that it is in the wrong place; it is concentrated in the larger financial centers of the country, the creditor sections, leaving a great portion of the back country, or the debtor sections, drained dry and making it appear that there is a great shortage of money and that it is, therefore, necessary for the Government to print more. This maldistribution of our money supply is the result of the relationship between debtor and creditor sections— just the same as the relation between this as a creditor nation and another nation as a debtor nation—and the development of our industries into vast systems concentrated in the larger centers.
• Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. When do you think prosperity will come back? Mr. ECCLES. It depends entirely on what the Government does. It will not come back unless action is taken by the Federal Government, in my judgment.

Note: Italics and bold are mine

by Edwin Lefevre

• The tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore. It doesn’t go into explanations… The reason for what a certain stock does today may not be known for two or three days, or weeks, or months. But what the dickens does that matter? Your business with the tape is now–not tomorrow. The reason can wait. But you must act instantly or be left.
• And right here let me say one thing: After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I’ve known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn.
• What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game – that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favoured my play.  There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is also the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time.  No man can have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.
• If somebody had told me my method would not work I nevertheless would have tried it out to make sure for myself, for when I am wrong only one thing convinces me of it, and that is, to lose money.  And I am only right when I make money.  That is speculating.
• They say you never go broke taking profits.  No, you don’t.  But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.
• I think it was a long step forward in my trading education when I realised at last that when old Mr Partridge kept on telling other customers, “Well, you know this is a bull market!” he really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements-that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend. 
• The market does not beat them.  They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.  Old Turkey was dead right in doing and saying what he did.  He had not only the courage of his convictions but also the intelligence and patience to sit tight. 
• Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out was fatal to me.  Nobody can catch all the fluctuations.  In a bull market the game is to buy and hold until you believe the bull market is near its end. 
• Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling.
• Losing money is the least of my troubles.  A loss never troubles me after I take it.  I forget it overnight.  But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul. 
• It sounds very easy to say that all you have to do is to watch the tape, establish your resistance points and be ready to trade along the line of least resistance as soon as you have determined it.  But in actual practice a man has to guard against many things, and most of all against himself – that is, against human nature.
• Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to.
• The game does not change and neither does human nature.
• I trade on my own information and follow my own methods.
• He was utterly fearless but never reckless.  He could, and did, turn on a twinkling if he found he was wrong. 
• The speculator’s deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope.  All the statue books in the world and all the rule books on all the Exchanges of the earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal
• I sometimes think that speculation must be an unnatural sort of business, because I find that the average speculator has arrayed against his own nature.  The weaknesses that all men are prone to are fatal to success in speculation – usually those very weaknesses that make him likable to his fellows or that he himself particularly guards against in those other ventures of his where they are not nearly so dangerous as when he is trading in commodities or stocks. 
• The public ought always to keep in mind the elementals of stock trading.  When a stock is going up no elaborate explanation is needed as to why it is going up.  It takes continuous buying to make a stock keep going up.  As long as it does so, with only small and natural reactions from time to time, it is a pretty safe proposition to trail with it. 
• But if after a long steady rise a stock turns and gradually begins to go down, with only occasionally small rallies, it is obvious that the line of least resistance has changed from upward to downward.  Such being the case why should anyone ask for explanations? 

• “People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.”
• “Always do whatever is next.”
• “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
• “Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.”
• “I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.”
• “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
• “If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?” 
• “I do this real moron thing, and it’s called thinking. And apparently I’m not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.” 
• “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”
• “Atheism is a non-prophet organization.”
• “Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.”
• “How is it possible to have a civil war?” 
• “Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?”
• “In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem.” 
• “The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” 
• “Some people have no idea what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” 
• “It’s never just a game when you’re winning.” 
• “If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff? ” 
• “Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”
• “I have lots of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck. ” 
• “I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam.” 
• And please don’t confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything’s gonna be all right.” 

• Before we conquer deep space let’s try to bridge inter-human space.
• You have broken the wall of your cell with your head. What are you going to do in your neighbor’s cell?
• Maybe your God wants you to boast about him in front of all other gods.
• Cannibals using fork and knife – is this progress?
• Everyone is an actor but is there a script for everyone?
• The peak of human morals: moving-prisons for nomads.
• Once again, I will start from the beginning, but before that, how do I end?
• How does the wind know which way to blow?
• The ultimate nightmare: bureaucracy takes over the country after it has eliminated ignorance.
• I welcome all thoughts that prevent me from thinking.
• I was forced to use wings as I was thrown out of the airplane without a parachute.
• I prefer “Entry forbidden” to “No entry”.
• I do not agree with math: the sum of zero is a humongous number!
• Some leaders would cut the hands of their citizens if they did not need them to clap.
• I was dreaming of reality. I woke up relieved.
• Do not turn your back on reality? How is this possible if reality surrounds us everywhere.
• Can the devil tempt me in believing in God?
• If you want to climb high, you have to fold your wings.
• Humans: live before it becomes fashionable to do something else.
• Be careful dramatizing your life – what if there is a better actor for your part?
• Be careful when fame shines on you. Your enemies are the ones hiding in the shadow.
• Don’t waste the energy accumulated from going down the slope.
• If there is no precedent that’s also a precedent.
• The first condition of immortality is death.
• Can you make up lack of talent with character?
• Many things were not created because of the impossibility of them being named.
• The fact that he died is not proof that he lived.
• When you think about it, the same fire which Prometheus stole from the gods was used to burn Giordano Bruno.
• As we get closer to the truth, we move away from reality.
• If you want to get to the source, you must swim against the current.
• Some people want to believe in the things they understand; others want to understand the things they believe in.
• His conscience is clear as it has never been used.
• Usually, the exit is where the entrance was.