Quotes from Robert E. Rubin

The only place people find fulfillment is within themselves. And too often, that's the last place they look.

The pursuit of fewer errors is sensible; the insistence on none at all, counterproductive.

Once you've internalised the concept that you can't prove anything in absolute terms, life becomes all the more about odds, chances, and trade-offs. In a world without provable truths, the only way to refine the probabilities that remain is through greater knowledge and understanding.

A]s important as moral and ethical issues are here, you don't need to rely on altruism to make the case for tackling poverty. It is in everyone's self-interest to reduce the societal consequences of deprivation. Poverty can foster crime and health care problems and in various other ways increase social costs and affect the lives of people who aren't poor.

As the increasing number of Americans attempting to do business in China are discovering, the Chinese may move, but not in direct response to demands or on someone else's timetable. In the twenty-first century, China will be a formidable and staunchly independent force.

While we were standing by, Clinton was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, which he reputedly could dispatch in a matter of minutes. He asked me about a clue—a three-letter word starting with some letter or other. I had no idea, so I asked my son Jamie. ¶ 'Who's so stupid they don't know that?' Jamie retorted in a voice that could be heard at the other end of the phone. ¶ 'The President of the United States,' I said.

The belief that affluence can insulate is illusory.

That story had at its core a discussion of my fundamental view that nothing in life is certain and that, consequently, all decisions are about probabilities.

There's a widespread view that the public sector from the private sector than the other way around. But the traffic seems to me to go in both directions.

Inner needs drive external accomplishments but can never be satisfied by those external accomplishments. Which is merely to say that, for some people, the inability to be satisfied is a chronic condition.

The point of the story is that even a highly disciplined investor can't see a market bottom any more easily than he can see the top.