William Jennings Bryan Quotes

There was a time when "sound as a dollar" was a description, not a joke.

And I am convinced that a single focus on preserving the purchasing power of the dollar, in effect, guarding against inflation or deflation, actually creates a solid foundation for the greatest job growth and the strongest economy that America can have.

Our system works best if the value of money stays the same.

The most important quality of a currency is its stability.

Monetary stability is a cornerstone of the social contract.

Requiring the Fed to focus on preserving the purchasing power of the dollar will create a solid foundation for economic growth.

Increased wages, higher pensions, more unemployment insurance, all are of no avail if the purchasing power of money falls faster.

....remember, a billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be.

Deflation isn't good, and inflation is easier to cure than deflation.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

If I were in charge of the government, I would index the minimum wage to inflation, so that way, everybody knows what they can count on.

If by carelessness in controlling inflation and imposing controls on our general economy we are unable to meet these temporary but vital calls upon us, we will be courting real disaster.

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. ... A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.

Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.

Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists it is the enemy of economic growth.

Our dollar is now altogether too greatly influenced by the accidents of international trade, by the internal policies of other nations and by political disturbance in other continents. Therefore the United States must take firmly in its own hands the control of the gold value of our dollar. This is necessary in order to prevent dollar disturbances from swinging us away from our ultimate goal.

I reject the advice of those who think the only way to fight inflation is to throw millions of people out of work .... I guarantee you that I will not fight inflation with your jobs.

Inflation eats away at ties that bind us together as a people.

Gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a monetary system.

Let’s be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms, and you’ll see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime – nor indeed ever in the history of this country. What is beginning to worry some of us is “is it too good to be true?” or perhaps I should say “is it too good to last?” For amidst all this prosperity, there is one problem that has troubled us, in one way or another, ever since the war. It is the problem of rising prices. Our constant concern is: Can prices be steadied while at the same time we maintain full employment in an expanding economy? Can we control inflation?

If Money were given to a People in greater Quantity than there was a Demand for, Money would fall in its value; but if only given equal to the Demand, it will not fall in value.

No great nation that ever went off the gold standard ever remained great.

The middle class is the engine of this economy.

Manifestly nothing is more vital to our supremacy as a nation and to the beneficent purposes of our Government than a sound and stable currency. Its exposure to degradation should at once arouse to activity the most enlightened statesmanship, and the danger of depreciation in the purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest incentive to prompt and conservative precaution.

Government should adjust its rates of expenditure and taxation such that total spending is neither more or less than that which is sufficient to purchase the full employment level of output at current prices. If this means there is deficit, greater borrowing, "printing money," etc., then these things in themselves are neither good or bad, they are simply the means to the desired ends of full employment and price stability.