Great Depression Quotes

• The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.

  John Steinbeck

  Men, Wrath, Monsters

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.27, Hamilton Books

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• The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Leadership, Bullying

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1933 See Francis Bacon 7; Montaigne 4; Thoreau 16; Wellington 3

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• No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.

  Isaac Asimov

  World, Safe, Convince

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.66, Bantam

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• I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Justice, Diversity, Political

  Second Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1937

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• How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other.

  John Steinbeck

  Children, Men, Wrath

  John Steinbeck (2016). “The Grapes of Wrath”, p.190, Hamilton Books

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• It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Sad, Wisdom, Freedom

  "Fight Club". www.imdb.com. 1999.

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• I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.

  Ned Vizzini

  Life, Sad, Depression

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• In the Great Depression in which I grew up and remember vividly, unemployment was over 25 percent, and over 35 percent where I lived. A grown man would work all day, 16 hours, for a dollar. I remember hundreds of people walking by, people who had come down from the North just to get warm. They would come to our house as beggars even though they might have a college education. People didn't have money. They bartered; they'd trade eggs or pigs. It was just completely different.

  Jimmy Carter

  College, Men, Pigs

  "Carter is upbeat about peace talks in Mideast WORDS OF WISDOM The former president offers encouragement to new U.S. envoy - and the rest of us. Q&A". Interview with Bill Lambrecht, www.stltoday.com. February 1, 2009.

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• A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Depression, Witty

  "Ronald Reagan: A Man True to His Word".

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• I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again.

  Ronald Reagan

  Jobs, Father, Mistake

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan)., Ronald Reagan, United States. Office of the Federal Register (1983). “Ronald Reagan”

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• The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

  Milton Friedman

  Depression, Government, Unemployment

  Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.38, University of Chicago Press

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• The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most.

  Irving Fisher

  Depression, Long, Economic

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• Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Depression, Spiritual, War

  "Bruise Control". www.theguardian.com. May 12, 2000.

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• As a young man, I lived through the Great Depression, when banks failed and so many lost their jobs and homes and went hungry. I was fortunate to have a job at a canning factory that paid 25 cents an hour.

  James E. Faust

  Jobs, Home, Men

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• The Great Depression was not a sign of the failure of monetary policy or a result of the failure of the market system as was widely interpreted. It was instead a consequence of a very serious government failure, in particular a failure in the monetary authorities to do what they'd initially been set up to do.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, Serious, Authority

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• While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover.

  Herbert Hoover

  Depression, Effort, Unity

  Herbert Hoover (1930). “Address of President Hoover at the Annual Dinner of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States: Washington, D. C., Thursday, May 1, 1930, at 9:30”

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• We have hit bottom and are on the upswing.

  James J. Davis

  Depression, Bottom

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• In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope-nothing of man.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Depression, Men, Giving

  "False Hope: Famous Quotes During the Great Depression", www.foxnews.com. 1933.

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• In the large sense the primary cause of the Great Depression was the war of 1914-1918. Without the war there would have been no depression of such dimensions. There might have been a normal cyclical recession; but, with the usual timing, even that readjustment probably would not have taken place at that particular period, nor would it have been a "Great Depression.

  Herbert Hoover

  War, Taken, Usual

  Herbert Hoover (1952). “The great depression, 1929-1941”

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• The country is not in good condition.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Country, Conditions

  "False Hope: Famous Quotes During the Great Depression", www.foxnews.com. January 20, 1931.

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• Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth.

  John Mellencamp

  Depression, Sky, Unemployment

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• During the Great Depression, when people laughed their worries disappeared. Audiences loved these funny men. I decided to become one.

  Jerry Stiller

  Depression, Men, People

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?

  Ben Bernanke

  Pay, Borrowed

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• The Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  War, People, May

  Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Bluebeard: A Novel”, p.92, Dial Press

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• I think if there's a great depression there might be some hope.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Depression, Thinking, Might

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