Christine Lagarde Quotations

What the president said very firmly yesterday is that the mandate of the Commission must be respected. But there is goodwill to explore all the terms of an accord which is indispensable,

We very much see that the future of the round lies in willingness to do some hard work, willingness to compromise, but certainly significant and serious offers to be made by the emerging countries.

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.

If we have tens of thousands of pullovers piled up at our frontiers, it's not very reasonable to apply it in a completely orthodox way,

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.

Frankly, I think Europe should have no shame given the efforts that have been undertaken, given the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy that was undertaken in 2003 and given the opening of Europe in general.

France is pushing heard inside the Union to speed up ties with Morocco.

We still have to obtain clarification on its interpretation,

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.

We put that offer on the table, which is frankly the limit of where we can go.

We need to remind the commissioner of the red line of his mandate,

We certainly feel in Europe that we have made very large concessions. The emerging countries, particularly the large emerging countries -- China for instance -- are going to have to propose concessions.

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.

As things stand, France therefore cannot support the commission in the agriculture proposals it has made,

There will not be consensus and there will not be major progress (in Hong Kong),

This accord shows the Europeans and the Chinese authorities know how to be pragmatic to solve the blockages which would have caused financial difficulties for French firms this year,

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

I'm very skeptical as to the ability to reach a comprehensive agreement given how little has been achieved in the last four months.

In the 2013 Economists Program, we hired 51 percent women, 49 percent men. And the reason for that is that we have a draft from all over the world, and we've hired, for instance, in that group, a good number of Chinese economists - highly qualified, all Ph.D.s from the best universities of the world. And guess what? They're all women.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

When women do better, economies do better.

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

Improved productivity is another direct benefit of globalization.

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

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.

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

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

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.

If climate change issues are not adequately addressed—if we keep running those nice energy subsidies, if the price on carbon is not adequately set, if policymakers don’t have it on their radar screens—then financial stability in the medium and long-term is clearly at stake.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

A global world needs global firewalls.

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

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

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 .

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

I guess economists, it’s a bit like scientists, you have definitely fewer women in that field,

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.

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

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

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.

Diversity in and of itself is a strong positive.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The meeting of experts took place this morning, and the commission was unable today to show any clear proof that the commission remains within its mandate,