Christine Lagarde quotes:

The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.

The Europeans governments have massively changed the landscape in Europe. There is no doubt about it. They have put together the European Financial Stability Fund. They have discussed and approved the European Stability Mechanism.

I have lived with extraordinary women, whether it was my grandmother, my mother. My father passed away when I was 16... I was witness to a woman who single handedly brought up the entire family and managed to do everything... She was an extraordinary role model for me.

I'm not in the business of reading tea leaves. I don't have a crystal ball.

Every day, you have to prove yourself and convince - move forward and challenge yourself. And doubt all the time.

I'm very much a believer that it's action that matters much more so than, you know, the flurry of political promises and statements and slogans that are used during political campaigns.

You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.

Grit your teeth and smile. In the face of adversity, go. They don't deserve you.

If Lehman Brothers had been a bit more Lehman Sisters ... we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened.

It's become my brand in a way, you know, speaking the truth even though it was not politically correct.

I love cooking. Not for myself alone. Cooking is about giving.

As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.

I do believe women have different ways of taking risks, of ruminating a bit more before they jump to conclusions. And I think that as a result, particularly on the, on, you know, on the trading floor, in the financial markets in general, the approach would be different.

I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.

Very often as a little girl, then as a young woman, I have suffered my lot of discrimination. I was brought up with brothers; I grew up in a boys' world. You have to elbow your way in. When you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time, then you are much more attentive to minorities.

All stakeholders must participate in the gains and losses of any particular situation.

I know this is economic jargon, but essentially, if you bring more women to the job market, you create value, it makes economic sense, and growth is improved. There are countries where it's almost a no-brainer: Korea, Japan, soon to be China, certainly Germany, Italy. Why? Because they have an aging population.

When my father passed away and then when later on I gave birth, those are sort of ground-breaking experiences that put everything else into perspective.

Gender-dominated environments are not good... particularly in the financial sector where there are too few women. In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to... show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.

There is a very strong linkage between U.S. banks and European banks. There are plenty of European employees that are employed by U.S. companies, and there are plenty of U.S. employees that are employed by European companies.

My father passed away after three years of debilitating disease, which transformed a very strong and bright man into a real wreck. And that is hard. You have to get out of that stronger, if you can, which I was lucky to be able to. I was the eldest of the family, and I had to support my mother and help my brothers.

Markets love volatility.

To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It's about stimulating them. It's about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.

I think there are multiple studies now to demonstrate that diversity, a better balance between genders, but also between different fields as well, is actually conducive to better growth, better bottom line, better results.

I hate to say there are female and male ways of dealing with power, because I think each of us has a male and a female part. But based on my own experience, women will tend to be inclusive, to reach out more, to care a little more.

I was praised in the U.S. and heavily, brutally criticized in France.

If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively,

It's a question of not so much pushing the boys out of the picture, but making the whole frame bigger so that both men and women access the labor market, contribute to the economy, generate growth, have jobs, and so on.

I have a theory that women are generally given space and appointed to jobs when the situation is tough. I've observed that in many instances. In times of crisis, women eventually are called upon to sort out the mess, face the difficult issues and be completely focused on restoring the situation.

If female were working in the same proportion as men do, the level of GDP would be up 27 percent in a country like India, but also up 9 percent in Japan and up 5 percent in the United States of America. It's not just a moral issue, not just a philosophical issue. It just makes economic sense.

Regulation is necessary, particularly in a sector, like the banking sector, which exposes countries and people to a risk.

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

I'm proud that somebody like myself has made it to the very top.

You are never wrong when you have voted because you've acted in accordance with your conscience and your beliefs, and you've exercised your democratic right, which is, you know, perfectly legitimate in our democracies.

Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.

We cannot just look at a country by looking at charts, graphs, and modelling the economy. Behind the numbers there are people.

Countries like Canada, Korea, China, Germany can and should use fiscal space. Some of them are doing it, not all.

Women, as the minority, have to prove their worth all the time. That's the reason we tend to over-prepare, over-study, over-anticipate. I think it's the case with many women leaders. We tend to over do it.

If you have an overwhelming majority of one sex over the other, and clearly in our case at the moment - and it has been like this for a long time - it is male over female, you tend to have group thinking. You tend to have common references, combined with competition, combined in this case with testosterone. I'm not suggesting it's a toxic mix, but I'm saying it needs to be tempered and altered and modified and made better by diversity.

Think about it. Women control 70 percent of global consumer spending . . . when women do better, economies do better.

Canada stands out as making a sensible and positive contribution to the world. I'm saying that maybe because of its inclination toward multilateralism. Support for the environmental protection cause. It's relationship between people and nature.

I learned that you can constantly improve, and that you should not be shy about your views, and about the direction that you believe is right.

We need to put our good research, our good work, our principles into actionable items whenever we can.

Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.

The Egyptian society needs to include its women if it wants to have economic prosperity.

I think I have a male side about me and you have a female side about you. It's a question of repressing or not.

Improved productivity is another direct benefit of globalization.

Social unrest and protectionism are the two major risks of the world economic crisis.

Before a negotiation can proceed and be completed, what is outside the scope of negotiation needs to be agreed.

We Need a RESET IN THE WAY THE ECONOMY GROWS Around the World

When women do better, economies do better.

The difficulty that negotiators have is often based on the cultural difference that various countries have.

France would be reluctant to embrace any proposal by the European Commission to slash agricultural tariffs if it threatened the European Union's Common Agriculture Policy .

Massive progress has been made in the last five years. More progress has to be made in terms of fiscal union and banking union.

There are goods that are outside trade and in the public domain and that should be reserved and protected.

Those negatively affected by globalization, those who are losing their jobs, and losing their skills, people out of training, must be looked after. Governments must establish policies, and governments and companies must actually address that issue, so that those who lose out from globalization can be retrained, recycled, re-established, cared for.

A global world needs global firewalls.

Of course, trade agreements can be beneficial, but of course they need to avoid infringing on certain areas and respect diversity.

We would not be enjoying those cellphones and those tablets at the price where they are had it not been for globalization, both in terms of trade and in terms of constant technological innovation.

Tackling climate change is a collective endeavour, it means collective accountability and it's not too late

People can buy the kind of things they consider as normal and take for granted because of globalization and trade and use of supply chains and the reduction of the cost base of the manufacturing of some products.

Consumption has massively benefited from globalization.

When in one area of the world the standard of living and the size of the middle class increases, it is going to have an effect elsewhere in the world as well.

It so happens that because all the economies are strongly inter-connected and aggregated, there is trade that is happening not just from China to the rest of the world, but from the rest of the world to China as well, and that is going to continue.

We draw many benefits from globalization that people take for granted. Poverty has been reduced massively around the world. If you look at the Chinese numbers, it is quite mind-boggling: 700 million people taken out of poverty in a matter of 40 years, the poverty rate having moved from over 30 per cent from hardly six per cent now. That would not have happened if there had not been globalization.

When you think of a safe and solid arbitration place, you think of Switzerland, Sweden, Canada. Those attributes may be associated with clichés, but I think they resonate with a lot of people and they are a solid base for Canada to co-operate and help others.

Diversity in and of itself is a strong positive.

In the area of trading, it is now an academically demonstrated fact that women tend to be a little bit more risk-adverse. They don't move positions as quickly and as erratically as men. Maybe it is a bit less profitably, but I think it would have been less risky.