Wall Street is an interesting movie, that portrays different images and struggles within the world of business and finance – regardless of whether the director (Oliver Stone) was actually really biased against powerful corporate and finance professionals. It draws the images of wealth, power, ambition, maturity, and many truths and anecdotes from the corporate world… definitely worth watching. Below is a selection of funny and deep quotes from the movie.
Gordon Gekko: Lunch is for wimps.
Carl Fox: Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.
Gordon Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.
Bud Fox: How much is enough?
Gordon Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.
Gordon Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.
Bud Fox: Sun-tzu: If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight, and if not split and reevaluate.
Lou Mannheim: Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.
Gordon Gekko: The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Gordon Gekko: What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.
Gordon Gekko: I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.
Gordon Gekko: If you need a friend, get a dog.
Gordon Gekko: The most valuable commodity I know of is information.
Gordon Gekko: Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Gordon Gekko: Ever wonder why fund managers can’t beat the S&P 500? ‘Cause they’re sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.
Carl Fox: Money’s only something you need in case you don’t die tomorrow…
Gordon Gekko: It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.
Bud Fox: There’s no nobility in poverty.
Gordon Gekko: If you’re not inside, you’re *outside*!