Felix Rohatyn Quotes

#1. I think there are two areas where new ideas are terribly dangerous: economics and sex. By and large, it's all been tried, and if it's really new, it's probably illegal or dangerous or unhealthy.

Felix Rohatyn

#2. The early years of my life were very, very traumatic. It was scary, because any child knew that death was sort of lurking around Europe as far as Jews were concerned.

Felix Rohatyn

#3. Saving New York City from bankruptcy is like making love to a gorilla. You don't stop when you're tired; you stop when he's tired.

Felix Rohatyn

#4. In the 1970s, New York City avoided bankruptcy because wise political leaders like Gov. Hugh L. Carey believed both in strong labor unions and robust banks and companies.

Felix Rohatyn

#5. Throughout U.S. history, competent public investments have been an essential complement to private investments - from the Louisiana Purchase, to land-grant colleges, to the Interstate Highway System, to the Internet.

Felix Rohatyn

#6. Success in business, as in life, is often largely just a matter of luck.

Felix Rohatyn

#7. Investment banking is not a business; it is a personal service where bankers work hand in hand with their clients. And it is a service that must not simply be about making bigger and bigger deals that reap rewards for only a small group of executives.

Felix Rohatyn

#8. Democracy cannot flourish half rich and half poor, any more than it can flourish half free and half slave.

Felix Rohatyn

#9. What is desperately needed ... is the skepticism and the sense of history that a liberal arts education provides.

Felix Rohatyn

#10. I am a capitalist and I believe in making a profit.

Felix Rohatyn

#11. Financial hydrogen bombs built on personal computers by 26-year-olds with MBAs.

Felix Rohatyn

#12. At its core, banking is not simply about profit, but about personal relationships.

Felix Rohatyn

#13. Beware of lawyers and consultants and people who do not take risks and who do not get their hands dirty.

Felix Rohatyn

#14. Fairness does not require the redistribution of wealth;
it requires the creation of wealth, geared to an economy
that can provide employment for everyone able and willing to work.

Felix Rohatyn

#15. The whole market mechanism and its evolution is something that, I'm kind of of the Buffett School. You know, if I see a derivative, I run the other way.

Felix Rohatyn