Quotes from Ben Bernanke

We should see better and more direct measurements of economic well being.

If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won't bring you much satisfaction.

Monetary policy is not a panacea.

For many of us, owning a home signaled a passage into adulthood that coincided with the start of a career and family.

Obviously, I haven't succeeded in defusing the political concerns about the Fed.

The Federal Reserve has never suffered any losses in the course of its normal lending to banks and, now, to primary dealers.

The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that liquidity provision by the Federal Reserve would not be sufficient to stop the crisis; substantial fiscal resources were necessary.

Evolutionary psychologists suggest that humans experienced evolutionary benefits from brain developments that included aversion to loss and risk and from instincts for cooperation that helped strengthen communities.

The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 was an extraordinarily complex event with multiple causes.

Remember that physical beauty is evolution's way of assuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites.

I came home from school one day, and there was a phone call for me. And I picked up the phone. They said, 'This is the Harvard Admissions Department. We'd like to let you know that you're accepted in the freshman class.' And I said, 'Come on, who is this really?'

The Mexican debt crisis, Latin American debt crisis, the crises of the 1990s, the Wall Street stock market crash, and other events should have reminded us, and did remind us, that financial instability remains a concern, remains a problem.

I've never been on Wall Street. And I care about Wall Street for one reason and one reason only because what happens on Wall Street matters to Main Street.

A collapse in U.S. stock prices certainly would cause a lot of white knuckles on Wall Street.

I got into economics because I wanted to make things better for the average person.

In a mature economy like India's, which is becoming modern and a financially-oriented economy, an independent central bank, responsible central bank, is really central to success.

Chairman Greenspan is, of course, a master.

Economic management involves the operation of economic frameworks in real time - for example, in the private sector, the management of complex financial institutions or, in the public sector, the day-to-day supervision of those institutions.

The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way.

Among other objectives, liquidity guidelines must take into account the risks that inadequate liquidity planning by major financial firms pose for the broader financial system, and they must ensure that these firms do not become excessively reliant on liquidity support from the central bank.

Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.

How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?