Christine Lagarde Quotes

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Improved productivity is another direct benefit of globalization.

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 .

When women do better, economies do better.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Diversity in and of itself is a strong positive.

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.

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

Consumption has massively benefited from globalization.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.