Quotes from Lawrence Summers

Contagion has become very much a phenomenon, and it's a phenomenon of globalization.

In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.

All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working?

You can't have a situation in which companies proceed on a permanent basis relying only on cash from the government.

The dramatic modernization of the Asian economies ranks alongside the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution as one of the most important developments in economic history.

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

If you look at the history of the American capital market, there's probably no innovation more important than the idea of generally accepted accountancy principles.

The major challenge for the United States is whether it can become the first outward-looking, continental, nonimperialist power in history.

I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to it.

Many children are taught to believe in God. I came to believe in the power of systems analysis.

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

There are children who are working in textile businesses in Asia who would be prostitutes on the streets if they did not have those jobs.

Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It's almost always the wrong response.

Deflation and secular stagnation are the risks of our time.

The United States basically accepted protection abroad as the price of post-war recovery. Now, that these countries have caught up to our level of prosperity, it is time for them to catch up to our level of openness.

Start with the idea that you can't repeal the laws of economics. Even if they are inconvenient.

It says something about this new global economy that USA Today now reports every morning on the day's events in Asian markets.

Most investors want to do today what they should have done yesterday.

But ultimately what I was impressed by during my years in government was how much the intellectual climate and the prevailing intellectual notions constrained and represented the universe within which the discourse took place.

Global capital markets pose the same kinds of problems that jet planes do. They are faster, more comfortable, and they get you where you are going better. But the crashes are much more spectacular.

It certainly was difficult to sell NAFTA because it's always difficult to sell open markets.

It was wrong to allow Stalin to shape the European landscape of the 20th century. It would be even more wrong to let him shape the landscape of the 21st century.

You can't have a situation in which companies proceed on a permanent basis relying only on cash from the government.

In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.