Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.
Being willing to donate the taxpayers' money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.
Ego trips by coteries of self-exalting people are treated in the media as idealism, rather than the petty tyranny it is.
Government restrictions are attractive to people who want to impose their pet notions without having to count the costs.
A lot of local food is very tasty. I'm very happy to eat it. I just don't think it's the same thing as saving the world.
Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow.
Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction; the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.
By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.
Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this.
The person I liked the best was Gerald R. Ford. He was the most decent man in politics I ever had any relationships with.
There are two sources of error: Either you lack sufficient data, or you fail to take advantage of the data that you have.
At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being
I am strongly committed to pursuing the dual goals that Congress has assigned us: maximum employment and price stability.
Everyone has an interest in the economy: in how it functions, how well it functions, and in whose interests it functions.
The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it's a failure of a knowledge of history.
... a speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.
The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money.
I like to think that life lessons are learned and re-learned every day and take on importance at different times in life.
It was a hallmark of Nelson Mandela's leadership that being open to change made him appear not weaker, but even stronger.
Economics brings into full view that conflict of choice which is one of the permanent characteristics of human existence.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure.
I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.
I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.
Every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new ideas . . . Possibilities do not add up. They multiply.
A progressive digital ad revenue tax would also make sure that dominant social media platforms bear the brunt of the tax.
So, what's a nudge? A nudge is some small feature of the environment that attracts our attention and alters our behavior.
I'm all for empowerment and education, but the empirical evidence is that it doesn't work. That's why I say make it easy.
It is an awful, an appalling thought, that we may be, this moment and every moment, in the presence of malignant spirits.
All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar ... always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support.
Managing university finances is very tricky business. We're nonprofits. We're not supposed to accumulate large surpluses.
Writing is a lot like making soup. My subconscious cooks the idea, but I have to sit down at the computer to pour it out.
The incredible stability in inflation is really a novel human experience. And the inflation is being the result of money.
The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.
There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.
The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.
As a rule of thumb. Congressional legislation that is bipartisan is usually twice as bad as legislation that is partisan.
Empirical laws [...] have only slight or even no value beyond the limits within which they have been observed to be true.
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone.
There is a very important distinction between a critical attitude of mind (or critical faculty) and a sceptical attitude.
There are many portions of economical doctrine which appear to me as scientific in form as they are consonant with facts.
Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior.
If you're going to be an academic who's involved in the world of policy, you have to be involved in the world that exists.
Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.
To the extent that bank panics interfere with normal flows of credit, they may affect the performance of the real economy.
It's not curators, it's not critics, it's not the public, it's not collectors who find great artists - it's other artists.
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
In an efficient market at any point in time the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value.
It's not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.
If democracy is a means rather than an end, its limits must be determined in the light of the purpose we want it to serve.