William E. Simon

“Pop taught me respect for my fellow man and reverence for my God. He taught me the importance of family and religion.”

“I found that I not only tolerated taking risks, I loved it.”

“A tax cut would most certainly be my first choice rather than an increase in federal spending. Those who advocate that fail to see that spending not only continues in subsequent years, but it grows and grows.”

“Disagreement on issues doesn't mean 'dissension.' All it means is that honest men can differ in their approach. You lay out your positions, and president makes a decision.”

“It is essential that the young people of this country learn to respect the right of every man and woman to seek his or her happiness with minimal interference from the government.”

“The very nature of the government, and the direction it's been heading in for the past 40 years, is one of contrived government solutions to all the problems in the United States.”

“While Pop lived his life in comfort, he was always generous to the less fortunate.”

“Work appealed to me; school did not. I was a disinterested, bored student.”

“For the U.S., the primary interest is our continued access to Saudi Arabian oil in adequate quantities... at an acceptable political as well as economic price.”

“I sometimes think that the only person fit to inherit wealth is the person who doesn't need an inheritance - the person who would create his own fortune no matter what his start in life - and have come to view inherited wealth as an affliction.”

“By the mid-1950s, the young bond traders on the Street were becoming more and more of a fraternity. We organized informal luncheons every Thursday in an effort to educate financial writers, who knew next to nothing about municipal bonds.”

“My father's card-playing buddies treated me as a plain, ordinary, commonplace kid destined for mediocrity - or less. I suppose they expected that I would spend my life as a clerk of some sort.”

“Trading demands total concentration and the ability to do several things at once while instantly recalling trading prices from the day, or week, before.”

“At Union Securities, I threw myself into my work with the discipline and commitment that I had always demonstrated in employment and only rarely displayed in school. Years later, I would come to appreciate, abstractly, the importance of productive activity to the mind and soul of both an individual and a nation.”

“There is only one social system that reflects the sovereignty of the individual: the free-market, or capitalist, system.”

“Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs, and wealth.”

“Everybody in this society that has been lurching toward socialism and collectivism for 40 years has their hand out. And the propensity of Congress is to spend, spend, elect, elect. That hasn't changed, and it isn't going to change for a long time.”

“The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated.”

“Infinitely more important than sharing one's material wealth is sharing the wealth of ourselves - our time and energy, our passion and commitment, and, above all, our love.”

“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.”