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A book is worth a few francs; we Germans can afford to destroy those. We all may not appreciate artistic merit, but cash value is another matter.

We have to still develop the Ikea group. We need many billions of Swiss francs to take on China or Russia.

I will return and I will be a million.

I owe everything to France.

You've had an extremely weak euro on the foreign exchange markets, you've had a very dubious policy being followed.

While everyone else is thinking about economics and politics, executive salaries and the future of the euro, do the opposite, even if it's hard. Invest in the spirit.

You could be worth $2 billion today and a half a billion tomorrow. It doesn't take much for this to disappear overnight.

I'm in spend-down. I've got a billion in cash. You can't leave people a billion pounds, can you?

We must prepare the ground for creativity. And if this also gives rise later to success in the economic sense, success in terms of Euros and Cents, this will by no means reduce my joy.

If we do not resolve the euro crisis, we will all pay the price. And if we do resolve it, we will all benefit, particularly German taxpayers and savers.