"Confidence grows as slowly as a coconut tree, and falls as fast as a coconut."
Montek Singh AHLUWALIA (Indian economist)

"The status quo cannot work."
Kofi ANNAN (Former UN Secretary-General)

"We need to ensure the poorest in the planet - who will be hardest hit by the financial crisis - are not forgotten."
Kofi ANNAN (Former UN Secretary-General)

"The free enterprise system has not failed; the financial system has failed."
Tony BLAIR (Former British Prime Minister)

"In times of recession there are massive opportunities and fortunes to be made, so for new up and coming entrepreneurs, this is the time to go and start a business."
Richard BRANSON (Founder of The Virgin Group)

"The policy of doing nothing will allow this crisis to start a retreat from globalisation with huge implications for prosperity in every part of the world in the years to come ."
Gordon BROWN (British Prime Minister)

"It's time to place the market within a moral framework - even if that means standing up to companies who make life harder for parents and families."
David CAMERON (British Conservative Party Leader)

"The best chapters in our economic history are those that embrace the many, not the few."
David CAMERON (British Conservative Party Leader)

"Business really has to work its way back. It has to re-earn the trust of its broad sets of constituents."
Richard EDELMAN (CEO of Edelman)

"I think we have moved from a shareholder society to a stakeholder society, and that has massive implications."
Richard EDELMAN (CEO of Edelman)

"Philanthropy is fun and fulfilling."
Bill GATES (Founder of Microsoft)

"The poor can't wait. Philanthropists needed to carry on being generous."
Bill GATES (Founder of Microsoft)

"The last thing to cut is your talent."
Rick GOINGS (CEO of Tupperware Brands Corp)

"There are no magic wands and even crystal balls are in short supply."
Stephen GREEN (chairman of HSBC)

"Banks have clearly done things wrong. Some of the practices did not contribute, by any reasonable standards, to human welfare"
Stephen GREEN (chairman of HSBC)

"The new administration is very serious about this. We need an agreement this year, not next year or some other time."
Al GORE (Former US Vice-President) on finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at a Copenhagen climate summit in December

"It's the same people who came last year and said the world economic situation is fine, and now we're in a financial crisis. Now it's the taxpayer who has to solve the whole problem."
Alex HEIDEGER (Member of the Davos Green Party)

"Inappropriate macro economic policies in some economies, characterised by [a] low savings rate and high consumption [and] failure of financial supervision and regulation to keep up with innovation which allowed financial derivatives to spread."
Wen JIABAO (Chinese Premier) on the causes of the financial crisis

"I don't think there is any global warming. I don't see the statistical data for that."
Vaclav KLAUS (Czech President whose country holds the EU Presidency)

"Social unrest and protectionism are the two major risks of the world economic crisis."
Christine LAGARDE (French Finance Minister)

"The opening up of markets is the best [thing] we can do to fight the crisis."
Doris LEUTHARD (Swiss Economy Minister)

"The notion of more of the same, must be replaced with more of something better."
Hans-Rudolf MERZ (Swiss President)

"Don't let's lose sight of what creates wealth. It is open markets, it is capitalism."
Rupert MURDOCH (Chairman of News Corporation)

"When over 3,000 people have already died of cholera, I think it is a tragedy that Africa cannot speak with one voice against this one regime."
Raila ODINGA (Kenyan Prime Minister) on Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe

"There is a real willingness to understand where we made mistakes and what we have to change in the future in order to improve our reputation on the one side, and the credibility of the whole industry on the other."
Alessandro PROFUMO (CEO of Unicredit)

"Worrying about inflation now is like worrying about the measles when you might get the plague."
Kenneth ROGOFF (Harvard professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund)

"Capitalism is the worst system except for all those others that have been tried. (variation on a Churchill quote)"
Nouriel ROUBINI (Economist who predicted the credit crunch)

"We worshipped in the temple of cutthroat competition, and so some cooked the books, because the treasure is so great."
Desmond TUTU (South African Archbishop)

"We spend billions on banks when we know that a fraction of this money could save all the children in the world."
Desmond TUTU (South African Archbishop)