Wolfgang Schauble Quotes

Reliability is the precondition for trust.

History shows us a lot of things. It shows why the Lord's Prayer includes the supplication: "And lead us not into temptation." In my day, dissertations were still written by hand, or drummed out with a typewriter. In the past, you had to round up the literature, find the books and find the passages. Nowadays you click on Wikipedia or Google and you have everything you need. This probably makes it more difficult to resist temptation.

My job is not to predict everything that might happen in the future, but to address what we can do today.

If you live beyond your means and have to restructure as a result, you pay a price.

You can lead a happy life if you recognize that it's limited and completely unpredictable from one moment to the next.

The United States lived on borrowed money for too long, inflating its financial sector unnecessarily and neglecting its small and mid-sized industrial companies.

Our balanced budget has an important psychological function. It is a signal that we can't continue to constantly take on debt.

During the centuries-long process of Reformation and Enlightenment, Christian churches had to accept some things they didn't like. Islam will have to do the same; otherwise it isn't part of Europe.

Germany has always stood for an E.U. of the 27 countries. But in light of Britain's continued resistance to further integration steps, as we saw with the fiscal pact, there are limits to my optimism in this regard. It's quite possible that we will have to create the new institutions for the euro zone first.

It is true that no member state can be required to make payments to others. But if countries want to offer voluntary assistance, as in the Greek case, this isn't only allowed, but it's also in Germany's interest. We all benefit by ensuring the stability of the euro zone.

Europe has grown through crises. Each crisis also presents opportunities, and Europe has emerged stronger from each one. That is the way history unfolds. Europe is sometimes slow, and it reacts sluggishly, but it is capable of finding solutions.

I don't want to change Islam, but if there is to be a European Islam, it must incorporate European values.

The German export successes are not the result of some sort of currency manipulation, but of the increased competitiveness of companies. The American growth model, on the other hand, is in a deep crisis.

Most of the mosques were built in our cities in recent years because Turkish citizens in those neighborhoods feel a growing need for places to pray.

If we want to avoid a clash of cultures - and the jury is still out on whether we can - we'll have to make different cultures and religions compatible with the universal nature of human rights and tolerance. But I can promise you this: Anyone who calls me an infidel at the conference will be in for a fight.

As a wheelchair user, you cant move about freely. Thats the only thing that bothers me a little. When Im in the Euro Group in Brussels, colleagues who want to talk to me have to come to me. But I hope they know that this has nothing to do with arrogance.

I don't want to interpret the pope's words, especially as I am one of those horrible people who fell away from the Roman church after Martin Luther.

I would caution against fueling cheap populism. First of all, every German who has spent a vacation in Greece knows that the standard of living there isn't higher than it is in Germany. Second, Greece is paying a high price for European assistance.

If you make the state responsible for everything, you shouldn't be surprised when you end up with a state that bears some resemblance to a dictatorship.

Many things can happen very quickly in times of crisis.

It has been clear for some time now that we have to do more for domestic and external security. I am prepared for that.

If there are possibilities for strengthening investments, they will not fail because of us. Emmanuel Macron is right when he says that we need to do more and talk less.

We need more personnel within our security agencies.

I think we will have to spend more on defense, for infrastructure, for extension of the broadband network and also for domestic security.

We in Germany could, for example, lower taxes. And who is against that? The Social Democrats. We could also mobilize more private investments for public infrastructure projects liken the construction of highways. But the Social Democrats also reject this, even though they are at times similar to others abroad in their carping about the surplus. Incidentally, some of the consequences of the good economic situation are strong increases in wages, rising pensions and a strong labor market.