There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man.
Jean GiraudouxRead
A stock certificate is not a tool, like a shovel, or a commodity, like a pound of cheese. What we sell a customer is not a share in a business, but a view of the Elysian Fields. A financier is a creative artist. Our function is to stimulate the imagination. We are poets!
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the creative and imaginative aspects of finance rather than viewing it purely as a transactional tool.
Jean Giraudoux suggests that the essence of finance transcends mere transactions; it is about inspiring and painting a vision for clients. By likening financiers to poets, he highlights the importance of creativity and imagination in the world of financial services, suggesting that they offer not just shares in a business but a perspective on greater possibilities and dreams.
In practice
This quote can be used in a financial seminar to inspire students about the creative side of finance.
There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man.
When a grown man reaches forty, we change him for an old one. He has completely disappeared. There's only the most superficial resemblance between the two of them. Nothing is handed on from one to the other.
Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.
It's odd how people waiting for you stand out far less clearly than people you are waiting for.
It would be better if only the old men fought the wars. Every country is the country of youth. When its youth dies, it dies with them.
A man has only one way of being immortal on earth: he has to forget he is a mortal.
Average investors can become experts in their own field and can pick winning stocks as effectively as Wall Street professionals by doing just a little research.
We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.'
The grim irony of investing is that we investors as a group not only don't get what we pay for, we get precisely what we don't pay for.
In other words, the percentage change in book value in any given year is likely to be reasonably close to that year's change in intrinsic value.
I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from. There is no fundamental issue of capabilities of repaying it in anything which is universally acceptable, which is either intrinsic value of the currency or the credit or trust of the individual who is issuing the money, whether it's a government or an individual.
Investors have few spare tires left. Think of the image of a car on a bumpy road to an uncertain destination that has already used up its spare tire. The cash reserves of people have been eaten up by the recent market volatility.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.