Your statement ... tells a very fine story; but pray, was…
““Your statement ... tells a very fine story; but pray, was not your stock a little heavy a while ago? downward tendency? Sort of low spirits among holders on the subject of that stock?" "Yes, there was a depression. But how came it? who devised it? The 'bears,' sir. The depression of our stock was solely owing to the growling, the hypocritical growling, of the bears." "How hypocritical?" ""Why, the most montrous of all hypocrites are these bears: hypocrites by inversion; hypocrites in the simulation of things dark instead of bright; souls that thrive, less upon depression, than the fiction of depression; professors of the wicked art of manufacturing depressions; spurious Jeremiahs; sham Heraclituses, who, the lugubrious day done, return, like sham Lazaruses among the beggars, to make merry over the gains got by their pretended sore heads--scoundrelly bears!" "You are warm against these bears?" "If I am, it is less from the remembrance of their stratagems as to our stock, than from the persuasion that these same destroyers of confidence, and gloomy philosophers of the stock-market, though false in themselves, are yet true types of most destroyer of confidence and gloomy philosophers, the world over. Fellows who, whether in stocks, politics, bread-stuffs, morals, metaphysics, religion--be it what it may--trump up their black panics in the naturally-quiet brightness, solely with a view to some sort of covert advantage. That corpse of calamity which the gloomy philosopher parades, is but his Good-Enough-Morgan." "I rather like that," knowingly drawled the youth. ~ The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade ””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
The speaker satirically describes market pessimists (“bears”) as hypocritical manipulators who create artificial depressions to profit, reflecting on how fear is manufactured in finance and beyond.
In simple terms: Market pessimists create fear to profit, using hypocrisy.
Beware manipulative pessimism.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- investment decisions
- political rhetoric
- media analysis
- personal risk assessment
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you distinguish genuine warning from manipulative fear?
- What strategies protect confidence without ignoring real risks?
Not all pessimism is intentional; some arise from genuine concern.