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If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.

Ben Bernanke

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Among the largest banks, the capital ratios remain good and I don’t expect any serious problems . . . . among the large, internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.

With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have - great universities. We have entrepreneurs.

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.

The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.

I don't think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.

It takes about two and a half percent growth just to keep unemployment stable.

If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won't bring you much satisfaction.

Nobody really understands gold prices and I don't pretend to understand them either.

I assure this committee that, if I am confirmed, I will be strictly independent of all political influences... essential to that institution's ability to function effectively and achieve its mandated objectives.

Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow.

The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers.

We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.