A quote on a financial crisis (via 37signals):
The financial crisis in America is really a moral crisis, caused by the series of proofs which the American public has received that the leading financiers who control banks, trust companies and industrial corporations are often imprudent, and not seldom dishonest. They have mismanaged trust funds and used them freely for speculative purposes. Hence the alarm of depositors, and a general collapse of credit.
—The Economist, 1908