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Daily Inspiration Quote by Mark Carney

"The more we invest with foresight, the less we will regret in hindsight"

About this Quote

Carney’s line borrows the cadence of a proverb, then smuggles in an economist’s worldview: regret is a cost, and foresight is the cheapest insurance policy you can buy. The sentence is engineered as a tight seesaw - “more” versus “less,” “foresight” versus “hindsight” - turning time itself into a balance sheet. It works because it makes prudence feel not just virtuous but efficient. The payoff isn’t moral purity; it’s reduced downside.

The intent is political without sounding partisan. “Invest” is the key word: it reframes precautionary spending as productive capital allocation, not indulgence. That matters in debates where anything long-term (climate adaptation, resilient infrastructure, financial regulation) gets painted as speculative or elitist. By promising fewer regrets, Carney appeals to a universal fear among decision-makers: being caught flat-footed and blamed after the fact. Hindsight is where inquiries, hearings, and headlines live.

The subtext is a critique of short-termism and the institutional incentives that reward it. Markets discount the future; election cycles compress it; quarterly earnings privatize the upside and socialize the fallout. Carney, as a central banker turned climate-finance advocate, has spent years translating systemic risk into language treasuries and boardrooms will accept. This quote is that translation in miniature: a soft coercion wrapped in common sense.

It also quietly shifts responsibility. If regret is avoidable, then failure to prepare isn’t bad luck - it’s negligence. That’s the rhetorical move: turning uncertainty from an excuse into a bill that will come due.

Quote Details

TopicInvestment
SourceSpeech: “Breaking the tragedy of the horizon , climate change and financial stability” (Lloyd’s of London, 29 September 2015)
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Carney, Mark. (2026, January 25). The more we invest with foresight, the less we will regret in hindsight. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-more-we-invest-with-foresight-the-less-we-184179/

Chicago Style
Carney, Mark. "The more we invest with foresight, the less we will regret in hindsight." FixQuotes. January 25, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-more-we-invest-with-foresight-the-less-we-184179/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The more we invest with foresight, the less we will regret in hindsight." FixQuotes, 25 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-more-we-invest-with-foresight-the-less-we-184179/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Mark Carney

Mark Carney (born March 16, 1965) is a Economist from Canada.

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