William E. Simon

"No sooner did the rumor get out that I was to chair the Oil Policy Committee than I was bombarded with advice, demands, and warnings from an astounding number of constituencies—ranging from the fifty-five federal agencies that had been regulating the oil industry to the industry itself to refiners, brokers, dealers, jobbers, and, of course, the eight major oil companies"

"The German poet Goethe once said, “What you have inherited from your forefathers, earn it over again for yourselves, so that you may truly possess it."

"WILLIAM SALOMON, FEBRUARY 22, 1994 Certainly at the time we were the largest risk-takers in the business. That wasn’t always necessarily out of choice. It was due to expediency. We didn’t have many people working for the firm who were members of the “right” clubs. Years ago, the old-time firms that became our major competitors had built-in business through family connections and college acquaintances. They were tied in because of who they were, while we were somewhat of a Johnny-come-lately with no Ivy League background and no tennis or other club memberships. We weren’t part of the “in” group in those days . . . So we had to fight our way in. The only way we knew how to fight was to take more risks than somebody else would take"

"My son Pete often jokes that the secret to my success is that I always sell too early, and in a way he’s exactly right. You never go broke taking a profit."

"Billy was a gentleman of the highest order—a suave, dignified man and natural leader who, incidentally, made the best paper airplanes in the trading room and was deadly accurate with a spit ball. We hit it off immediately"

"The great gift that Bill has for people is he instills in them the faith in themselves that they can do something. Whether they can do it or not, they’re going to learn how to do it, because they think they can do it. And nine times out of ten, they can do it. I know he did that to me many times. He’d give me something to do that I thought, I can’t possibly do this—and then did it. And he must have thought I could do it or he wouldn’t have given it to me. I’ve seen him do that throughout his career. He’s very good at it."

"On one occasion, Henry publicly commented about our relationship and our respective roles in the administration: “I have a treaty of nonaggression with Secretary Simon. I will not speak about economic matters, he will take over foreign policy only slowly.”"

"The more I worked with government and the more attention I paid to matters of politics and public policy, the more I became interested in political philosophy and the roots of the freedom that most of us take for granted. Still, I didn’t take seriously the collectivists and assorted academics who clamored endlessly for more government and less individual autonomy. To me, they and their philosophy was akin to the Tooth Fairy: Lots of people talk about the Tooth Fairy, but only children and imbeciles take it seriously. I assumed it was the same with leftists and did not yet fully appreciate the danger and threat that their ideas represented"

"Young people soured on politics and politicians, and I can’t say I blamed them. Washington had become an elitist, self-absorbed city that cared little for the values of everyday Americans who believe deeply in the work ethic and in family, freedom, and faith in God. Behind those majestic monuments in the backrooms of Congress, self-serving politicians were busily spending and borrowing America ever deeper into debt. The country was at a critical juncture and I felt that, perhaps, I could make a contribution."

"He is always ready to make decisions, and to take responsibility for them. Bill is a risk taker and, if he feels he can do something, he’s not afraid to go do it. Many people are afraid to make a decision because they don’t want to stand up to the heat that comes with it,"

"Early in this century, the idea began to take hold in the United States that the problems of our society were growing so large that individuals could no longer cope with them. Instead, people began asking the government to assume responsibility for solving their problems—and to do the things for them that they once did for themselves. Government gradually became a beneficent protector against the evils of modern life. That trend accelerated during the 1960s as we were promised through the powers of government that we could fight a land war in Asia, abolish the business cycle, eradicate pollution, and put a man on the moon, all at the same time. The result of President Johnson’s “guns and butter” economy, broken promises, and an overbearing government, was predictable."

"In his seminal work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the Austrian-American economist and social theorist pessimistically predicted that the leaders of the free market would allow themselves to be converted to a creed hostile to their own existence because they would be unable to articulate a moral basis for free enterprise. In Washington, I became convinced that Schumpeter was right. America’s leading colleges and universities—the training ground for America’s leaders—were increasingly pro-socialist, pro-government regulation, and anti-capitalist in their philosophy, direction, and mission"

"I would be interrupting a successful career, uprooting my family, and giving up a comfortable and relatively predictable lifestyle for the vagaries of Washington. But my country called, and I was raised in an era when if your country called, be it to fight a foreign enemy or serve in government, you answered the call—with pride and honor and gratitude and respect. If you truly love your country and if you fear for freedom, can you stand by and see the battle lost without joining the fight? Inconceivable."

"I was reminded of—and perhaps haunted by—what the historian Gibbon said of Athens. “In the end,” he wrote in his epitaph for the ancient Republic, “more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all—security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom of responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free"

"I’m not sure where my life would have led had I declined President Nixon’s offer and stayed on the comfortable road I was following on Wall Street. But by listening to my instincts, taking a risk, and beginning a new journey on an unknown path, I learned more about life, discovered more about myself, stretched my horizons farther, and savored experiences far richer than I would otherwise have ever known. Some people might call it fate. Some might call it luck. But I would call it God’s plan."

"We reminded the president that while nobody likes the results of inflation, everyone loves what causes it. Americans love the spending, the creation of money and purchasing power. They love government spending programs, but those programs lead to massive deficits—so we create more money to finance even larger deficits."

"Much more unsettling and disappointing was the general reaction of the business community. Perhaps like me before my Washington experience, some business leaders were too preoccupied with their immediate concerns to pay much attention to the intellectual assault on everything that makes their freedom and prosperity possible. Others, however, simply did not have the stomach to fight for it. Many, sadly, had lost their faith and hope in the competitive free-enterprise system. In the face of an enemy assault, they were willing simply to capitulate. They yearned to be accepted as “socially responsible” and feared they would be labeled “insensitive” or “conservative.” I was appalled and felt betrayed by those who should have been my philosophical brethren."

"Simon is a believer, and his faith in the American system of private enterprise seems almost unlimited. “Government is a menace,” he says, asserting that the country would be much better off if businesses were permitted to operate unfettered in the market place . . ."