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J.P. Morgan Quotes

19 quotes from J.P. Morgan — Banker and financier who dominated American finance in the Gilded Age..

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther.

Vision

If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.

Finance

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.

Motivation

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

Perseverance

Money equals business which equals power, all of which come from character and trust.

Business

When you expect things to happen – strangely enough – they do happen.

Expectation

I made a fortune getting out too soon.

Investment

Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.

Law

No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form.

Problem Solving

Anyone can be a millionaire, but to become a billionaire you need an astrologer.

Wealth

A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom.

Trust

Monetary losses amount to nothing in life. It is the loss of life that counts.

Perspective

The old House of Morgan spawned 1,000 conspiracy theories. It catered to many prominent families, including the Astors, Guggenheims, du Ponts and Vanderbilts. It shunned dealing with lesser mortals, thus breeding popular suspicion.

Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan

Recognizing that the nation could not continue to rely on wealthy individuals to stem an economic and financial crisis, Congress passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Act on May 30, 1908.

Federal Reserve History, federalreservehistory.org

Contrary to the usual law of perspective, the Morgans seem to grow larger as they recede in time.

Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan

The first thing is character... before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it... A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom.

J.P. Morgan, testimony before the Pujo Committee, December 1912

No price is too high for an object of unquestioned beauty and known authenticity.

J.P. Morgan, attributed

You would have got it.

J.P. Morgan, reportedly to Andrew Carnegie after the U.S. Steel deal

What the Rothschilds represented in the 19th century and the Morgans in the 20th won't be replicated by any firm in the next century. The banker no longer enjoys a monopoly on large pools of money.

Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan

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