Christine Lagarde Quotes

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.

Very often as a little girl, then as a young woman, I have suffered my lot of discrimination. I was brought up with brothers; I grew up in a boys' world. You have to elbow your way in. When you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time, then you are much more attentive to minorities.

The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.

If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively,

To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It's about stimulating them. It's about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.

I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.

I have lived with extraordinary women, whether it was my grandmother, my mother. My father passed away when I was 16 ... I was witness to a woman who single handedly brought up the entire family and managed to do everything ... She was an extraordinary role model for me.

I was praised in the U.S. and heavily, brutally criticized in France.

I love cooking. Not for myself alone. Cooking is about giving.

It's become my brand in a way, you know, speaking the truth even though it was not politically correct.

Gender-dominated environments are not good ... particularly in the financial sector where there are too few women. In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to ... show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.

Regulation is necessary, particularly in a sector, like the banking sector, which exposes countries and people to a risk.

There is a very strong linkage between U.S. banks and European banks. There are plenty of European employees that are employed by U.S. companies, and there are plenty of U.S. employees that are employed by European companies.

All stakeholders must participate in the gains and losses of any particular situation.

Massive progress has been made in the last five years. More progress has to be made in terms of fiscal union and banking union.

If climate change issues are not adequately addressed - if we keep running those nice energy subsidies, if the price on carbon is not adequately set, if policymakers don't have it on their radar screens - then financial stability in the medium and long-term is clearly at stake.

Tackling climate change is a collective endeavour, it means collective accountability and it's not too late

Think about it. Women control 70 percent of global consumer spending ... when women do better, economies do better.

I do believe women have different ways of taking risks, of ruminating a bit more before they jump to conclusions. And I think that as a result, particularly on the, on, you know, on the trading floor, in the financial markets in general, the approach would be different.

You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.

If Lehman Brothers had been a bit more Lehman Sisters ... we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened.

The Europeans governments have massively changed the landscape in Europe. There is no doubt about it. They have put together the European Financial Stability Fund. They have discussed and approved the European Stability Mechanism.

Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.

Every day, you have to prove yourself and convince - move forward and challenge yourself. And doubt all the time.

In the 2013 Economists Program, we hired 51 percent women, 49 percent men. And the reason for that is that we have a draft from all over the world, and we've hired, for instance, in that group, a good number of Chinese economists - highly qualified, all Ph.D.s from the best universities of the world. And guess what? They're all women.

I know this is economic jargon, but essentially, if you bring more women to the job market, you create value, it makes economic sense, and growth is improved. There are countries where it's almost a no-brainer: Korea, Japan, soon to be China, certainly Germany, Italy. Why? Because they have an aging population.

If female were working in the same proportion as men do, the level of GDP would be up 27 percent in a country like India, but also up 9 percent in Japan and up 5 percent in the United States of America. It's not just a moral issue, not just a philosophical issue. It just makes economic sense.

It's a question of not so much pushing the boys out of the picture, but making the whole frame bigger so that both men and women access the labor market, contribute to the economy, generate growth, have jobs, and so on.