There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man.
Jean GiraudouxRead
A stock certificate is not a tool, like a shovel, or a commodity, like a pound of cheese. What we sell a customer is not a share in a business, but a view of the Elysian Fields. A financier is a creative artist. Our function is to stimulate the imagination. We are poets!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the creative and imaginative aspects of finance rather than viewing it purely as a transactional tool.
Jean Giraudoux suggests that the essence of finance transcends mere transactions; it is about inspiring and painting a vision for clients. By likening financiers to poets, he highlights the importance of creativity and imagination in the world of financial services, suggesting that they offer not just shares in a business but a perspective on greater possibilities and dreams.
Themes
FinanceImaginationCreativityVisionArtistry
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a financial seminar to inspire students about the creative side of finance.
More from Jean Giraudoux
All quotes →When a grown man reaches forty, we change him for an old one. He has completely disappeared. There's only the most superficial resemblance between the two of them. Nothing is handed on from one to the other.
Jean GiraudouxRead
Everyone, when there's war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.
Jean GiraudouxRead
It's odd how people waiting for you stand out far less clearly than people you are waiting for.
Jean GiraudouxRead
It would be better if only the old men fought the wars. Every country is the country of youth. When its youth dies, it dies with them.
Jean GiraudouxRead
A man has only one way of being immortal on earth: he has to forget he is a mortal.
Jean GiraudouxRead
Similar quotes
Ben's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising 'Take two aspirins'?
Warren BuffettRead
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
Ernest HemingwayRead
We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values; a vision of fiduciary duty and shareholder service, and values rooted in the proven principles of long-term investing and of trusteeship that demands integrity in serving our clients.
John C. BogleRead
Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything.
Warren BuffettRead
After costs, only the top 3% of managers produce a return that indicates they have sufficient skill to just cover their costs, which means that going forward, and despite extraordinary past returns, even the top performers are expected to be only as good as a low-cost passive index fund. The other 97% can be expected to do worse.
Eugene FamaRead
A single agency responsible for systemic risk would be accountable in a way that no regulator was in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. With access to all necessary information to monitor the markets, this regulator would have a better chance of identifying and limiting the impact of future speculative bubbles.
Henry PaulsonRead