Top 100 Michael Bloomberg Quotes
#1. I've got the greatest job in the world. There's no other job in government where cause and effect is so tightly coupled where you can make a difference every day in so many different ways and in so many different people's lives. It's a great challenge.
Michael Bloomberg
#4. When it comes to public school education, we have been unwilling to measure our results. We've been unwilling to pay based on performance. We have tenure where, even if you can't teach, you can't get fired. We've been unwilling to invest in new schools.
Michael Bloomberg
#5. Government should not tell you what to do unless there's a compelling public purpose.
Michael Bloomberg
#6. I like the theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. It's like a wet dream.
Michael Bloomberg
#7. You're going to see a million people here who have the courage to come and not let terrorists win, and that's exactly what we should all do.
Michael Bloomberg
#8. Even though New York is the safest big city in the nation, there are still far too many illegal guns on our streets. Nearly all of them arrive from out of state - and most are sold by a small group of rogue gun dealers who refuse to obey federal laws.
Michael Bloomberg
#10. I will say that walking down the street, getting on the subway, taking the elevator, if there's one or two people and they say, 'Great job, Mayor,' that is a real turn-on. I mean, anybody that wouldn't find that satisfying, rewarding, exciting, thrilling - I think they should see the doctor.
Michael Bloomberg
#11. I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.
Michael Bloomberg
#12. If it wasn't for O'Flanagan's Pub on Manhattan's Upper East Side, I don't know where I would have spent my Friday nights as a young man.
Michael Bloomberg
#13. We need our president to be successful because our futures are all tied to the success of America, which means America's government, which means, in essence, the president.
Michael Bloomberg
#14. We have to get control of our borders. You can only do that if you make companies obey the law and not hire undocumented or illegals. They can only do that is if they have a Social Security Card that has biometrics so they know whether the person is legal or not.
Michael Bloomberg
#15. Stubborn isn't a word I would use to describe myself; pigheaded is more appropriate.
Michael Bloomberg
#16. There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.
Michael Bloomberg
#17. I don't believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it's so outdated.
Michael Bloomberg
#18. New York has been, and will continue to be, a magnet for people from all over the world. This is where the arts, business, research and technology converge to create the world's foremost urban economy.
Michael Bloomberg
#20. Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.
Michael Bloomberg
#21. You must first be willing to fail - and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.
Michael Bloomberg
#23. When I came into office, people said, 'Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?' Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It's not an issue.
Michael Bloomberg
#24. I never liked anyone who didn't have a temper. If you don't have a temper, you don't have any passion.
Michael Bloomberg
#25. And I keep saying, whether you like the president or not, everybody has to pull together and help the president because, as the president goes, so goes the country, as the country goes, so goes your job, your ability to feed your family, your government.
Michael Bloomberg
#26. I've always thought if we don't want to enforce laws on the books, we should remove them from the books. But when you have laws, you breed contempt if you don't enforce them.
Michael Bloomberg
#27. Because of my success in the private sector, I had the chance to run America's largest city for 12 years, governing in the wake of its greatest tragedy.
Michael Bloomberg
#28. When you come in to court as a plaintiff or as a defendant, it is terribly important that you look up at the bench and feel that that person represents you and will understand you, that that person is reflective of our community and of our society.
Michael Bloomberg
#30. I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I'm happy to be one - or proud to be one.
Michael Bloomberg
#31. Government caters to those screaming the loudest, regardless of what they're screaming about. In business, it's exactly the opposite! You invest more in the most successful departments, and less in those that aren't performing.
Michael Bloomberg
#33. We are the safest large city in America, but any crime rate is too high.
Michael Bloomberg
#34. The level of analysis that is done when you see laws created, whether it's the city or state or federal level - it's much more horse-trading than analysis.
Michael Bloomberg
#36. We cannot continue. Our pension costs and health care costs for our employees are going to bankrupt this city.
Michael Bloomberg
#37. This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing. It's not politically viable; it's not morally right; it's just not going to happen.
Michael Bloomberg
#38. What has changed is that people have stopped working together.
Michael Bloomberg
#39. You can't define what's middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor.
Michael Bloomberg
#40. The truth of the matter is: you can create a great legacy, and inspire others, by giving it to philanthropic organizations.
Michael Bloomberg
#41. The public is upset. If they haven't lost their job, they know somebody that has. If they haven't lost their house, they know somebody that has. What do you do? When something's wrong, it's government's job to fix it, it must be government that's responsible for causing it.
Michael Bloomberg
#42. We will rebuild, renew and remain the capital of the free world.
Michael Bloomberg
#43. In the game of life, when the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of assists you made.
Michael Bloomberg
#44. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.
Michael Bloomberg
#45. We should remember it wasn't so long ago that confidence in New York was in short supply.
Michael Bloomberg
#46. Someone once described the information business as exactly the opposite of sex. When it's good, it's still lousy.
Michael Bloomberg
#47. Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.
Michael Bloomberg
#49. America is built around this premise that you can do it, and there are an awful lot of people who are unlikely to have done it who did.
Michael Bloomberg
#50. Today, as an independent, an entrepreneur, and a former mayor, I believe we need a president who is a problem solver, not a bomb thrower. Someone who can bring members of Congress together to get things done. And I know Hillary Clinton can do that because I saw it firsthand.
Michael Bloomberg
#51. You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.
Michael Bloomberg
#52. The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States.
Michael Bloomberg
#54. I know something about how to build constituencies in an independent way.
Michael Bloomberg
#55. If someone tells me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to find another mountain.
Michael Bloomberg
#56. We have an energy policy - we're transferring our wealth to overseas to a bunch of countries that don't have the same values as us. In some cases, they're using our money to finance terrorism against us.
Michael Bloomberg
#57. Unemployment in America today is too high. And part of the reason, unfortunately, is that many companies cannot fill the high-skilled jobs increasingly at risk of going overseas.
Michael Bloomberg
#58. Central planning didn't work for Stalin or Mao, and it won't work for an entrepreneur either.
Michael Bloomberg
#59. I have two daughters that are the loves of my life and I want to leave them a better world, a better country, a better state and a better city.
Michael Bloomberg
#60. Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be - given the devastation it is wreaking - should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.
Michael Bloomberg
#61. In our democracy, near equality is no equality. Government either treats everyone the same, or it doesn't. And right now it doesn't.
Michael Bloomberg
#62. And because no matter who you are, if you believe in yourself and your dream, New York will always be the place for you.
Michael Bloomberg
#63. We're paying more for the privilege of getting sick and dying early. Once again, it makes no sense. And once again, no one in Washington is talking about how to fix it.
Michael Bloomberg
#64. Don't be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don't let the bastards get you down.
Michael Bloomberg
#65. To a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.
Michael Bloomberg
#66. Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.
Michael Bloomberg
#67. Design does matter. And not necessarily in a way that people realize. A lot of what you do, people take for granted - that a park has always been here, that a bicycle lane has always been there, that the street is safe or clean ...
Michael Bloomberg
#68. In 1975, Congress passed a law requiring fuel efficiency standards to double over 10 years, with incremental targets that auto manufacturers were required to meet. That was the responsible approach, and it worked. But since 1985, we've done nothing - even as technology has moved at light speed.
Michael Bloomberg
#69. In New York City, a lot of people think 'the great outdoors' is the area between your front door and a taxi cab.
Michael Bloomberg
#70. The next day after I got fired, literally the next day, I started a new company.
Michael Bloomberg
#71. People have no confidence that Washington, both sides of aisle, are coming together to try and do what's right for the economy.
Michael Bloomberg
#72. Is your company so small you have to do everything for yourself? Wait until you're so big that you can't. That's worse.
Michael Bloomberg
#73. America was built by immigrants. Almost nobody that I know is any more than three generations, maybe four generations, American.
Michael Bloomberg
#74. I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.
Michael Bloomberg
#75. What you've got to do is be honest. Say what you believe. Give it to them straight. Just don't wuss out.
Michael Bloomberg
#76. The estate taxes, on balance, are good. They get people to give money to charity, and they prevent these family dynasties which keep other people from having opportunities. It may be good for a family, but for society it's probably not good. And I've always been in favor of having an estate tax.
Michael Bloomberg
#77. You are safer here tonight than you would be on the streets of any other city in the world.
Michael Bloomberg
#78. If you want to know how to solve society's problems, you start out with better public education.
Michael Bloomberg
#79. Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself or success as a team. You have to share the pain and the responsibility and if you do then you will also share in the rewards.
Michael Bloomberg
#80. Well, we have to provide the world's best schools. We certainly don't have them, but that's our objective.
Michael Bloomberg
#81. You know, I start with the assumption that -or with, with the belief that this president has to succeed. We all have an enormous amount of capital invested in his success. His success is the country's success.
Michael Bloomberg
#82. If you are honest with yourself and if you want to like what you see in the mirror, is you have to say what you really believe.
Michael Bloomberg
#83. What the Democrats have to understand is that while we do need to reform our regulation and we do need more restrictions, it is true that it is capitalism and free enterprise and companies that create jobs and wealth for every American.
Michael Bloomberg
#84. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It's not even close.
Michael Bloomberg
#85. I think if you look at people, whether in business or government, who haven't had any moral compass, who've just changed to say whatever they thought the popular thing was, in the end they're losers.
Michael Bloomberg
#86. Getting the job done has been the basis for the success my company has achieved.
Michael Bloomberg
#87. Ironically, it is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.
Michael Bloomberg
#89. There is no accountability today ... no willingness to focus on big ideas.
Michael Bloomberg
#90. Partisanship may be King in Washington - but the rest of us don't have to pay tribute.
Michael Bloomberg
#91. If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. In fact a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk of the taxes.
Michael Bloomberg
#93. These endless legal challenges that define elections in New York are a joke in this country, and they are the reason why it is so expensive, or one of the reasons, it's so expensive to run here and why so many people decide not to run.
Michael Bloomberg
#94. This is the city of dreamers and time and again it's the place where the greatest dream of all, the American dream, has been tested and has triumphed.
Michael Bloomberg
#95. We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.
Michael Bloomberg
#96. When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air - the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.
Michael Bloomberg
#97. We're America, and we have to stop worrying about what happens overseas, and to be optimistic, even though nobody should think we're not going to have some difficult times.
Michael Bloomberg
#98. I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump's business plan is a disaster in the making.
Michael Bloomberg
#99. What goes on in Europe concerns us greatly because, if Europe comes apart, the E.U. comes apart, then you're going to have enormous impact on America, that's a very big trading partner of ours, and people own securities around the world in this day and age.
Michael Bloomberg
#100. Yes, they broke the law, but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it - they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.
Michael Bloomberg
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