126 Great Depression Quotes

Following is our list of great depression quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about great recession.

Quick Jump To

Famous Great Depression Quotes

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. — Milton Friedman

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. — Harry S Truman

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. — Harry S. Truman

Alas, in 1929 came the Stock Market crash and everything changed and became worrisome. People started practicing conservatism because of financial losses, myself included. — Pola Negri

When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression. — Jesse Jackson

In the 1930s one was aware of two great evils - mass unemployment and the threat of war. — James Meade

Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth. — John Mellencamp

The economic crisis really affected my family - 2006 to 2011 were really bad times. Almost everybody in my family lost their jobs. — Joey Badass

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. — Ludwig von Mises

Our Generation has had no Great war, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives. — Chuck Palahniuk

This depression was deep, and you don't climb out of anything as quick as you fall in. — Will Rogers

The insane pursuit of the holy grail of a balanced budget in the end is going to drive the economy into a depression. — William Vickrey

No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through. — Timothy Geithner

After the First World War the economic problem was no longer one of production. It was the problem of finding markets to get the output of industry and agriculture dispersed and consumed. — John Boyd Orr

Short Great Depression Quotes

  • Depression is the inability to construct a future. — Rollo May
  • A recession is like a Black Friday Sale for investors. — Jaspreet Singh
  • Of all aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment. — Jane Addams
  • Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs. — Nancy Pelosi
  • Depression is rage spread thin. — George Santayana
  • Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking. — Doug Coupland

Great Depression Image Quotes

Great depression quote Silence is a source of great strength.
Silence is a source of great strength.

Economic Depression Quotes

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves. — Herbert Hoover

There is a difference between broke and being poor. Being broke is a temporary economic condition, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit, and you must vow to never, ever be poor again. — John Hope Bryant

Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months. — Irving Fisher

Great depression quote If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most. — Irving Fisher

The U.S. dollar is in terminal decline. America is tragically bankrupt, unable to pay its lenders without printing the dollars to do so, and enmeshed in an economic depression. The clock is ticking until the dollar faces a crisis of confidence like every other bubble before it. — Peter Schiff

I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress. — Andrew Mellon

Great depression quote Stress, anxiety, and depression are caused when we are living to please others.
Stress, anxiety, and depression are caused when we are living to please others.

No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically. — Isaac Asimov

For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright. — Irving Fisher

Economic depression can not be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. — Herbert Hoover

The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services...America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin. — Stuart Chase

Great Recession Quotes

The financial crisis and the Great Recession posed the most significant macroeconomic challenges for the United States in a half-century, leaving behind high unemployment and below-target inflation and calling for highly accommodative monetary policies. — Jerome Powell

The financial crisis and the Great Recession left firms with excess capacity, reducing incentives to invest. — Jerome Powell

The exposure from 'Iron Chef' has been helpful, but at the end of the day your product and your service determine whether you get customers or not. If people decide to eat out less during a recession, the first restaurants that they will cut out are the ones that don't do a great job. — Michael Symon

Great depression quote Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fac
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, surrounded by assholes.

Many of the great financial disasters we’ve seen have been failures to foresee and manage risk. — Howard S. Marks

Credit is like a drug. Initially, it feels great as it stimulates economic activity, but eventually, you become addicted and require more and more to achieve the same effect. — Russell Napier

Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. — Frederick Jackson Turner

Great depression quote Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.
Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.

The biggest problem in correcting errors in the market is that stocks look best when they are at the peak and not so great when they are at the bottom. — Thomas Phelps

There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash. — Irving Fisher

While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes, I don't. I find it patriotic. — Mark Cuban

As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession. — Robert Foster Bennett

Economic Recession Quotes

Small to medium sized enterprises make up over 60% of employment in the UK. It wouldn’t be crazy to imagine half shutting down as they’re bankrupted by energy costs. People need to get serious of what a true economic collapse would look like. It ain’t like a simple recession. — Philip Pilkington

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. — Friedrich August von Hayek

Investing, like economics, is more art than science. And that means it can get a little messy. — Howard S. Marks

Great depression quote Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.
Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.

There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions. — Robert Reich

Democracy thus becomes a mass delusion of people attempting to override the rules of economics by voting themselves a free lunch and being manipulated into violent tantrums against scapegoats whenever the bill for the free lunch arrives via inflation and economic recessions. — Saifedean Ammous

Maintaining confidence in international trade will be critical to the broader economic recovery in the post-Covid world. — Liz Truss

Great depression quote Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

Credit is the oil in the engine of economic growth, but too much oil can cause the engine to seize. — Russell Napier

Handling covid, we made a lot of big mistakes, and it led to tens of trillions of dollars of economic damage and millions of lives lost. Much of that was preventable. — Sam Bankman-Fried

I believe that the economics which deal with forecasting business trends may be considered to be about as far along as was the science of chemistry during the days of alchemy in the Middle Ages. — Philip Arthur Fisher

As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession. — Bo Bennett

Stock Market Crash Quotes

I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several million dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Once the smoke of the market crash clears off, you know, the Internet will pick back up and go. Take a look at what's happening to some of the big companies like eBay and Yahoo, the publicly traded stocks. You know, they're all coming back up off the mat now. — Michael Nesmith

My father was a very successful businessman, but he was ruined in the stock market crash. A big stockbroker jumped out the window and fell on his pushcart. — Jackie Mason

Great depression quote Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.
Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.

After 1929, so many people had been traumatized by the stock market crash that there was a lost generation. — Ron Chernow

Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known. — George Will

When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.' — Joe Biden

Great depression quote You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.

The only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that's going to come crashing down. — Donald Trump

The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers. — Ben Bernanke

When my book 'Rich Dad's Prophecy' was released in 2002, most financial newspapers and magazines trashed it because I discussed a looming stock market crash. — Robert Kiyosaki

An interesting thing happened in 1989, right as I was graduating: the stock market crashed and really changed the landscape of the art world in New York. It made the kind of work I was doing interesting to galleries that wouldn't have normally been interested in it. — Matthew Barney

Economic Crisis Quotes

I will not let anyone tell me we must spend more money. This crisis did not come about because we issued too little money but because we created economic growth with too much money and it was not sustainable growth. — Angela Merkel

The climate crisis is being used to create totalitarian controls on society by the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, and all of these megabillionaires. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Now our Earth is swarmed with issues such as life, death, illness, wars, economic crises and many others. It is time that we sing out loud the message, 'Love forever.' — Yayoi Kusama

Great depression quote Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.
Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.

The financial crisis should not become an excuse to raise taxes, which would only undermine the economic growth required to regain our strength. — George W. Bush

If we have an economic crisis in the Western world it's because the government makes up 50 percent or more of the economy. This is a cancer that is taking away people's freedom. — Marc Faber

The exchange-rate trap, another legacy of this former president Alberto Fernández’s government, not only constitutes a social and productive nightmare, but also the surplus of money today is double what it was before the Rodrigazo economic crisis of 1975. — Javier Milei

Great depression quote To a great mind, nothing is little.
To a great mind, nothing is little.

What the people here have said is that given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for the same old, same old establishment politics and establishment economics. — Bernie Sanders

Women's struggle for equality worldwide is about more than equality between men and women. Our struggle is about reversing the trends of social, economic, political, and ecological crisis - a global nervous breakdown! Our struggle is about creating sustainable lives and attainable dreams. — Bella Abzug

Marxists have more than once pointed out that the capitalist world economic system contains in itself the seeds of a general crisis and of warlike clashes. — Joseph Stalin

Ebola is not just a health crisis. Across West Africa, a generation of young people risks being lost to an economic catastrophe. — Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Deep Depression Quotes

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth. — Bo Burnham

Every man has his secret sorrows. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I'm a happy-go-lucky manic-depressive. It does get very deep and dark for me, and it gets scary at times when I feel I can't pull out of it. But I don't consider myself negative-negative. I'm positive-negative. — Tim Burton

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. — Chuck Palahniuk

My guaranteed way of sending myself into deep depression is to read music trade papers and watch MTV. — Damon Albarn

And I always think of life like a giant wave. You know, it rises and it crests and it flies, and it's just magnificent, and then it crashes. And for a lot of people, when it crashes, that's the end, and they go down the deep, dark hole of depression. — Jane Seymour

During the next four years...unless drastic steps are taken by Congress, the U.S. will have nearly 8,000,000 unemployed and will stand on the brink of a deep depression. — Henry A. Wallace

I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side. — Parker Posey

I have deep feelings of depression... What can I do about this?' 'Snap out of it! Five cents, please. — Charles M. Schulz

When I need some striking inspiration about deep depression for my new painting, I just need to go to check my bank account. — Hiroko Sakai

People Writing About Great Depression

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman
quotes on capitalism, inflation and government

372 3653
Read quotes by Harry S Truman

Harry S Truman
quotes on communism, democracy and politicians

106 2563
Read quotes by Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman
quotes on communism, democracy and politicians

373 6925
Read quotes by Pola Negri

Pola Negri

13 54
Read quotes by Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson
quotes on education, leadership and diversity

186 1673
Read quotes by John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp

110 413

More Great Depression Quotes

Don't get upset with your imperfections. It's a great mistake because it leads nowhere - to get angry because you are angry, upset at being upset, depressed at being depressed, disappointed because you are disappointed. So don't fool yourself. Simply surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is always greater than our weakness. — Saint Francis de Sales

Bipolar disorder can be a great teacher. It's a challenge, but it can set you up to be able to do almost anything else in your life. — Carrie Fisher

I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare. — Ned Vizzini

Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and it’s sucked every second so far, it probably isn't going to get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early. — Doug Stanhope

Arthritis, Crohn's disease, psoriasis, depression - all of those diseases are a result of our neglected biochemistry. We need to be stimulated to help fight disease. Cold is a great stimulator. — Wim Hof

Avoid the rabbit holes that can kind of lead to us not being our best selves and not feeling great… — Christina Koch

Because its hard to realize now that that was the end of the great depression, you know. All of a sudden all of this is in front of me and I'm solvent, you know. I'm making some money and I know where my next meal is coming from, and I have a new pair of shoes and that's it. — Robert McCloskey

Bernanke has cultivated this idea that he is a brilliant scholar of The Great Depression, but that’s not true at all. — David Stockman

The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it. — John Steinbeck

The remedy [for the Great Depression] is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others, . . . the American way. — Upton Sinclair

There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue. — Andrew Mellon

I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism. — Andrew Mellon

In the US after the Great Depression, they invested heavily in infrastructure to create a lot of employment. In Germany after the war there was the Marshall plan for roads, rail, housing, energy, water and so on. That created massive employment after the devastation of the war and helped them to rebuild the country. — Raila Odinga

We either misdirect or depress great amounts of energy in order to keep ourselves from feeling pain, including what we feel in the moment and being who we are in the moment. — Barbara Brennan

I am worried that the collapse of home prices might turn out to be the most severe since the Great Depression. — Robert J. Shiller

FISHER SEES STOCKS PERMANENTLY HIGH — Irving Fisher

We will not have any more crashes in our time. — John Maynard Keynes

We are having the single worst recovery the U.S. has had since the Great Depression. I don't care how you measure it. The East Coast knows it. The West Coast knows it. North, South, old, young, everyone knows it's the worst recovery since the Great Depression. — Arthur Laffer

Great men suffer hours of depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great. That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men. — Bruce Barton

Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin. "And what happened?" pressed Ford. "It committed suicide," said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold. — Douglas Adams

American labor may now look to the future with confidence. — James J. Davis

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other. — John Steinbeck

Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career. — Lawrence R. Klein

I was born illegitimately and almost immediately, as I understand it, placed in an orphanage. So my very earliest memories were in an orphanage. It was the tag end of the Great Depression when I was born. People were desperately poor. — Bryce Courtenay

Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career. — Lawrence Klein

Onions make me sad. A lot of people don't realize that. — Mitch Hedberg

My parents survived the Great Depression and brought me up to live within my means, save some for tomorrow, share and don't be greedy, work hard for the necessities in life knowing that money does not make you better or more important than anyone else. So, extravagance has been bred out of my DNA. — David Suzuki

Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product. — Nicholas Stern

You're lucky if you're in three great movies, or even one great movie. I've been so lucky. But if you rely on the business to dictate whether you're happy, it gets really complicated. You just can't do that. There have been times in my life that I've done that, and I've found it depressing. — Winona Ryder

We may look great on Instagram, but we're still lonely and depressed and anxiety-ridden. I hope, for the sake of our future generations, that our moral compass stays intact. — Nelly Furtado

I think if there's a great depression there might be some hope. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

You can't get real happy or real depressed when you play baseball. Baseball is a great sport in that it offers a player a lot of opportunities for atonement. — Mike Piazza

In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope-nothing of man. — Calvin Coolidge

In the Great Depression, employment was not low because investment was low. Employment and investment were low because labor market institutions and industrial policies changed in a way that lowered normal employment. — Edward C. Prescott

In Conclusion

Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of great depression quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about great depression to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.

Citation

Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of great depression quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.

Embed HTML Link

Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage