Work, William Lyon Phelps

Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.

- William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943)

Investor, Wall Street

When enough investors find themselves shorn, scapegoats will be sought.

- Wall Street

The real reason for a protracted decline is never bear raiding.

Investor, Wall Street

Successful investor must not only observe accurately but remember what he has observed.

- Wall Street

Bet always on probabilities.

Stock, Wall Street

Stocks always look worst at the bottom of a bear market and always look best at the top of a bull market.

- Wall Street

Do not underestimate of courage it takes to act on your beliefs.

Banking System, Richard Ramsden

You can construct a banking system in which no bank will ever fail, in which there's no leverage. But there would be a cost. There would be virtually no economic growth because there would be no credit creation.

- Richard Ramsden of Goldman Sachs, 2010

Name, Basque Proverb

Aberats izatea baino, izen ona hobe.
Translation: It's better to have a good name than to be rich.

- Basque Proverb

The Basque language (called Euskara by the Basque language speakers or Basques themselves) is the oldest language in Europe, the only non Indo-European language that survived after the administration of the Roman Empire spread throughout our continent. It is spoken by about one million people in the seven provinces of the Euskal Herria, that is, in North East Spain and South West France. No relationship between Basque and any other language has been established with certainty. The alphabet used for Basque employs Roman letters. The first printed book in Basque appeared in the 16th century. Basque is both agglutinative and polysynthetic.

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English equivalent

¶ A good name is the best treasure.

Chance, Wall Street

You always need a catalyst to make big things happen.

- Wall Street

Birth, Selina Kyle from The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Selina Kyle: You don't get to judge me just because you were born in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor
Bruce Wayne: [interrupting] Actually, I was born in the Regency Room.

- Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Time, Thousand Character Classic

尺璧非寶寸陰是競。

- 千字文

Jade has a price but time is priceless.

- Thousand Character Classic (千字文)

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From

千字文 (Thousand Character Classic)

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Reference

¶ 少年易老学难成，一寸光阴不可轻。(朱憙)
The young become old soon. It takes a lot of time to learn something. We must not waste any time. [Zhu Xi (朱憙, 1130-1200)]

¶ Time is money.(Western Proverb)

¶ You may delay, but time will not. (Benjamin Franklin)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Character_Classic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AThousand_Character_Classic

Ability to Adapt to a New Epoch, Bill Gross

There is not a Bond King or a Stock King or an Investor Sovereign alive that can claim title to a throne. All of us, even the old guys like Buffett, Soros, Fuss, yeah – me too, have cut our teeth during perhaps a most advantageous period of time, the most attractive epoch, that an investor could experience. ...What if an epoch changes? What if perpetual credit expansion and its fertilization of asset prices and returns are substantially altered? What if zero-bound interest rates define the end of a total return epoch that began in the 1970s, accelerated in 1981 and has come to a mathematical dead-end for bonds in 2012/2013 and commonsensically for other conjoined asset classes as well? What if a future epoch favors lower than index carry or continual bouts of 2008 Lehmanesque volatility, or encompasses a period of global geopolitical confrontation with a quest for scarce and scarcer resources such as oil, water, or simply food as suggested by Jeremy Grantham? What if the effects of global "climate change or perhaps aging demographics," substantially alter the rather fertile petri dish of capitalistic expansion and endorsement? What if quantitative easing policies eventually collapse instead of elevate asset prices? What if there is a future that demands that an investor—a seemingly great investor—change course, or at least learn new tricks? Ah, now, that would be a test of greatness: the ability to adapt to a new epoch.

- Bill Gross (1944- )

Pimco's Bill Gross Looks at the Man in the Mirror (CNBC.com, 3 Apr 2013) http://www.cnbc.com/id/100612898