Quantitative Finance Quotes

Reflections on Careers in Quantitative Finance

Carnegie Mellon's Steve Shreve is out with an interesting post on careers in quantitative finance, with his commentary on the changing landscape in quantitative research and the implications for financial education. ~ Paul Ellis

New York is the city of privilege. Here is the seat of the Invisible Power represented by the allied forces of finance and industry. This Invisible Government is reactionary, sinister, unscrupulous, mercenary, and sordid. It is wanting in national ideals and devoid of conscience ... This kind of government must be scourged and destroyed. ~ William Jennings Bryan

The great artists of finance like Morgan and Rockefeller weren't deflected. They wanted and got money, just simple money. What they did with it afterward is another matter. I've always felt they got scared of the ghost they raised and tried to buy it off. ~ John Steinbeck

When you invest in life, you are being fruitful and productive ~ Sunday Adelaja

This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought. ~ John P. Kotter

God, how patient are Thy poor! These corporations and masters of manipulation in finance heaping up great fortunes by a system of legalized extortion, and then exacting from the contributors-to whom a little means so much-a double share to guard the treasure! ~ Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian. ~ Alberto Manguel

Rich men hold their secrets close to their chest and share among themselves only. I am not afraid to share my secrets to poor people because I know most of them will not use it ~ Ola Barnabas

We are beginning to play with ideas of ecology, and although we immediately trivialize these into commerce or politics, there is at least an impulse still in the human breast to unify and thereby sanctify the total natural world, of which we are ... There have been, and still are, in the world many different and even contrasting epistemologies which have been alike in stressing an ultimate unity, and, although this is less sure, which have also stressed the notion that ultimate unity is aesthetic. The uniformity of these views gives hope that perhaps the great authority of quantitative science may be insufficient to deny an ultimate unifying beauty.
I hold to the presupposition that our loss of the sense of aesthetic unity was, quite simply, an epistemological mistake. ~ Gregory Bateson

Most of the CEO's who fail think they will find the solution to their problems in Finance, Marketing, Strategic Planning, etc., but they don't look for the solution to their problems inside themselves. ~ Patrick Lencioni

I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds. ~ Francois Hollande

Funny thing, falling in love. You can't quite explain the difference between this--kissing the girl you love, having sex with the girl you love--and all the kissing and all the sex that came before. You can't describe the difference between her flesh and that flesh, her hips and their hips, her gasp and those gasps. You can't parse the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the experience, the units that make up the whole, any more than you, the untrained viewer, can explain why the Mona Lisa is the Mona fucking Lisa. You just stand back and take it in and say, Wow, so this is art. You lie back in your bed, you hold her next to your chest, her ribs next to your ribs, her breath and your breath, and you say, So this is love. ~ Beatriz Williams

Today, the qualifications required
for senior positions within NGOs reflect the evolution of those activists
who have also become managers: trained in law, business administration,
or finance, experienced, with a good capacity to "liaise" with political
circles or the business community, their profile often does not substantially
differ from those of corporate managers. ~ Nicolas Guilhot

Once I found her sitting straight up at the dining room table with her eyes half open, staring at nothing. When I touched her shoulder, she didn't even look at me. In spite of all this, or maybe because of it, I always smiled and said hi to her in the halls. I helped her with her English Lit homework and practically did her PowerPoint presentation on the New York Stock Exchange on the morning that it was due. Even so, whenever she saw me coming, she always looked away, like she knew how much crap people gave me about it - not my real friends; I'm talking about world-class losers like Dean Whittaker and Shep Monroe, rich jerks whose Fortune 500 dads swam the icy seas of international finance looking for their next meal. None of that bothered me. ~ Joe Schreiber

A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal you're making, don't make it. ~ James Surowiecki

We're richer, but that wealth doesn't reflect durable, authentic economic value - which is hitting fast diminishing returns. The growth that we're pursuing is neither sustainable - nor is it, in many ways, real growth at all. Boardrooms from finance to autos to energy to pharma to fashion have learned that the hard way. ~ Umair Haque

Reliability investing requires finding companies trading below their inherent worth
stocks with strong fundamentals including earnings, dividends, book value, and cash flow selling at bargain prices give their quality. ~ Amah Lambert

Perfect study is the key to being effective in the land of your calling ~ Sunday Adelaja

Nobody wants campaign finance reform more than me. It would save me a fortune. ~ Andrew Tobias

Life is a totality of time ~ Sunday Adelaja

If it isn't the sheriff, it's the finance company; I've got more attachments on me than a vacuum cleaner. ~ John Barrymore

The dreams we had of finding meaning and fulfillment through our jobs have faded into the reality of professional politics, burnout, boredom and intense competition. ~ Vicki Robin

Let's not forget, it was the government, Department of Finance and Central Bank that decided to unfairly land the taxpayers of this country with unmitigated losses of Anglo and massive legacy issues that would have been expected when nationalising a fraudulent bank. ~ Sean Quinn

Finance, like time, devours its own children. ~ Honore De Balzac

Use time to be a seeker of the Kingdom ~ Sunday Adelaja

The most important factor to growing your financial stability isn't your income. Rather, your success is much more related to how well you keep your eye on the ball. Organize your finances around the principles of financial stability. Aim for that goal, and over time you will find many unexpected ways to actually put money aside. ~ Erik Wecks

Channel your energy into your God-given purpose. Being out of a job gives you all the time you need to grow ~ Sunday Adelaja

I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money. ~ Andrew Motion

Excuse me, Ben," Bowen said. "Am I wrong, or aren't you the corporate treasurer?"
Glisan bristled. "Yes."
"What do you mean, you think you can get one?" Bowen shot back. "This is the current fucking maturities schedule! Go get it. You have to have a maturities schedule!"
But they didn't. With all the focus on deals and earnings- with finance group's transformation into a profit center rather than a division to support the business- the workday, boring details had been sloughed off.
p. 560 ~ Kurt Eichenwald

Never depend on a single income. Make Investments to create a second source." - Warren Buffet ~ Archie Lee

You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place. ~ Bruce Sterling