Quotes by Economists - Page 3

The more of himself man attributes to God the less he has left in himself.
Karl Marx
The cause of freedom is the cause of God.
Samuel Bowles
One of life's gifts is that each of us no matter how tired and downtrodden finds reasons for thankfulness.
J. Robert Maskin
People call me an optimist but I'm really an appreciator ... years ago I was cured of a badly infected finger with antibiotics when once my doctor could have recommended only a hot water soak or eventually surgery.... When I was six years old and had scarlet fever the first of the miracle drugs sulfanilamide saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and photocopiers ... I appreciate where we've come from.
Julian Simon
Who is the Forgotten Man? He is the clean quiet virtuous domestic citizen who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard of out of his little circle.
William Graham Sumner
More die in the United States of too much food than of too little.
J. K. Galbraith
I don't accept defeat as final. Only death is final - and even then I hope for a reprieve.
Phil Gramm
If all else fails immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth Galbraith
He only is exempt from failures who makes no effort.
Richard Whately
To a great experience one thing is essential - an experiencing nature.
Walter Bagehot
We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.
Alexander Hamilton
A person buying ordinary products in a supermarket is in touch with his deepest emotions.
J. K. Galbraith
The British are terribly lazy about fighting. They like to get it over and done with and then set up a game of cricket.
Stephen Leacock
God save our Gracious King Long live our Noble King God save the King. Send Him victorious Happy and Glorious Long to rule over us God save the King.
Henry Carey
I find the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty.
Clark Kerr
If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room full of people I would say to myself "You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation. ... Why should you be frightened?"
Beatrice Potter Webb
We live in an epoch in which the solid ground of our preconceived ideas shakes daily under our certain feet.
Barbara Ward
A wiser rule would be to make up your mind soberly what you want peace or war and then to get ready for what you want for what we prepare for is what we shall get.
William Graham Sumner
In not making the decision you've made one. Not doing something is the same as doing it.
Ivan Bloch
Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.
Alexander Hamilton
A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing.
Alexander Hamilton
There is danger in reckless change but greater danger in blind conservatism.
Henry George
When people are least sure they are often most dogmatic.
John Kenneth Galbraith
All that philosophers have done is interpret the world in different ways. It is our job to change it.
Karl Marx
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.
John Stuart Mill
Every dogma has its day.
Abraham Rotstein
Constitutions should consist only of general provisions the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
Alexander Hamilton
The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
Walter Bagehot
Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
Thorstein Veblen
The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
Walter Bagehot
I've learned ruthless concentration. I can write under any circumstances ... street noises loud talk music you name it.
Sylvia Porter
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
Karl Marx
Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In communism inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
Proudhon
He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.
George P. Shultz
Lord Ronald said nothing he flung himself from the room flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
Stephen Leacock
In embracing change entrepreneurs ensure social and economic stability.
George Gilder
I've learned only that you never say never.
Marina von Neumann Whitman
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion and if we were sure stifling it would be an evil still.
John Stuart Mill
By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
Adam Smith
Labour is not a commodity or a standard or a means to an ulterior end but an end in itself.
George Brockway
A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
Howard Scott
Business is really more agreeable than pleasure it interests the whole mind . . . more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.
Walter Bagehot
In all modern depressions recessions or growth-correction as variously they are called we never miss the goods that are not produced. We miss only the opportunities for the labour - for the jobs - that are not provided.
J. K. Galbraith
People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Adam Smith
Power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.
Alexander Hamilton
In the history of enterprise most of the protagonists of major new products and companies began their education - not in the classroom where the old ways are taught but in the factories and labs where new ways are wrought ... nothing has been so rare in recent years as an Ivy League graduate who has made a significant innovation in American enterprise.
George Gilder
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to a judicious use of sabotage.
Thorstein Veblen
What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm capitalism is that kind of a system.
Milton Friedman
In economics the majority is always wrong.
J. K. Galbraith
There is only one social responsibility of business - to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits without deception or fraud.
Milton Friedman
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
J. K. Galbraith
Competition means decentralized planning by many separate persons.
Friedrich Hayek
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
John Maynard Keynes
I was brought up in southwestern Ontario where we were taught that Canadian patriotism should not withstand anything more than a five-dollar-a-month wage differential. Anything more than that and you went to Detroit.
J. K. Galbraith
Canadian nationalism was systematically encouraged and exploited by American capital. Canada moved from colony to nation to colony.
Harold A. Innis
In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages ... so we just go right ahead and use English for literature Scotch for sermons and American for conversation.
Stephen Leacock
Capital is a result of labor and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force and labor is therefore the employer of capital.
Henry George
Capital is dead labor that vampirelike lives only by sucking living labor and lives the more the more labor it suck.
Karl Marx
Much will have to change in Canada if the country is to stay the same.
Abraham Rotstein
Canada has no cultural unity no linguistic unity no religious unity no economic unity no geographic unity. All it has is unity.
Kenneth Boulding