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When I was a kid, I reckoned things in Hershey bars. Is this worth three Hershey bars to me?

I can tell you, because I serve on so many nonprofit boards - where half of us are academics and half of us are from Wall Street - that there's no CEO who understands at all a derivative. All they know is that somebody tells them in their organization, 'We've got a wonderful profit center.'

From Paul Samuelson

American society was economically ill-run in the 1980s. Our society has been on a consumption binge. If the American people had a town meeting and said, 'What do we care about posterity? Posterity hasn't done anything for us; we're going to whoop it up now,' that is a rational judgment. But nobody ever did that.

From Paul Samuelson

Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.

From Paul Samuelson

Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.

From Paul Samuelson

It is indeed true that the stock market can forecast the business cycle.

From Paul Samuelson

I think that it's more important for an economist to be wise and sophisticated in scientific method than it is for a physicist because with controlled laboratory experiments possible, they practically guide you; you couldn't go astray. Whereas in economics, by dogma and misunderstanding, you can go very sadly astray.

From Paul Samuelson