from Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street

"We are living amid the vestiges of old controversies, and we speak their language, though we are dealing with different thoughts and different facts." 

"...it assumes that what works most easily when established is that which it would be the most easy to establish, and that which seems simplest when familiar would be most easily appreciated by the mind though unfamiliar.  But exactly the contrary is true."

"Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone;"

"Credit in business is like loyalty in government.  You must take what you can find of it, and work with it if possible." 

"The distinctive function of the banker, says Ricardo, 'begins as soon as he uses the money of others;' as long as he uses his own money he is only a capitalist."