“Albert Einstein when asked what he considered to be the most powerful force in the universe answered: Compound interest!”

—  Mignon McLaughlin

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

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Mignon McLaughlin 278
American journalist 1913–1983

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This Snopes article http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/interest.asp concluded that its status was uncertain, while this post from The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/31/compound-interest/ concludes it is most likely a false attribution, since variants of the quote date back to at least 1916, with the early variants not being attributed to Einstein.
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