Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.
We enjoy freedom and the rule of law on which it depends, not because we deserve it, but because others before us put their lives on the line to defend it.
The difference between a policy and a crusade is that a policy is judged by its results, while a crusade is judged by how good it makes its crusaders feel.
Morality, like other inputs into the social process, follows the law of diminishing returns- meaning ultimately, negative returns. People can be too moral.
Marshall Jevons is the pioneer for integrating economics and detective fiction, and The Mystery of the Invisible Hand is another fine effort in this genre.
The great challenge of the twentieth century ... is to create a new financial architecture in which private decisions produce a less degenerate capitalism.
Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which... public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours.
Chinese productivity is the highest in the world but the way they do it is by borrowing the technology from abroad, either by joint ventures or other means.
The governments and the hard-headed military establishment and the general conservative part of America have never taken much interest in democracy, anyway.
If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.
The gaps in power, the gaps in wealth, the gaps in ideology which hold the nations apart also make up the abyss into which mankind can fall to annihilation.
At the BBC we've had plenty of women in good management jobs. It comes and goes but there's been plenty. On air, I think there's quite a bit more we can do.
A situation where people can grow old without having a job that rewards them individually while adding to the collective well-being is morally unacceptable.
Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.
America has had gifted conservative statesmen and national leaders. But with few exceptions, only the liberals have gone down in history as national heroes.
Productivity growth, however it occurs, has a disruptive side to it. In the short term, most things that contribute to productivity growth are very painful.
With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation.
I would put primary emphasis on a good standard of living equitably distributed. It can't be equal, but one that eliminates the terrible cruelty of poverty.
The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.
We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.
Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.
The momentum today behind the idea of a new global reserve currency reflects, in effect, the rise of the rest in world politics and economics, led by China.
The aim of development must be neither producerism not consumerism, but the satisfaction of fundamental human needs, which are not only needs of humanity...
When a private enterprise fails, it is closed down; when a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. Isn't that exactly what's been happening with drugs?
Building a road might create temporary jobs, but does it really create wealth if it doesn't also shorten commute times or otherwise make society better off?
The economic costs, the financial costs, the job losses, the income losses, the fiscal costs of bailing out financial system are becoming larger and larger.
If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist.
We know that advanced economies with stable governments that borrow in their own currency are capable of running up very high levels of debt without crisis.
Behavioral economics offers a plausible explanation for overreactions by the market. For example, a long period of bad performance can lead to stereotyping.
The more we turn down questionable offers like trip insurance and scrutinize 'one month' trials, the less incentive companies will have to use such schemes.
The efficiency of most workers is beyond the control of the management and depends more than has been supposed upon the willingness of men to do their best.
What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.
When government takes away options, it is bound to make some people worse off, even with intrinsicallly good intentions behind that government intervention.
Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, that no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match.
And let the Fed sell bonds to bring bank reserves back down to required reserve levels, so we have restraint on bank lending and bank issuances of liability.
For policy makers interested in using tax policy to stimulate investments or especially to smooth business cycle fluctuations, the results are not promising.
For every criticism of the U.S. economy, whenever people go into a panic, they look around and say, 'That's the cleanest shirt I have. So I'm putting it on.'
While holding the eurozone together will be costly and difficult and painful for the politicians, breaking it up will be even more costly and more difficult.
In 1972 I married again, to Elisabeth Case; she continues to be wife, companion, critic and editor: a partner in the projects and programs that we undertake.
Countries like Japan do not have to change their cultures to address their educational shortcomings; they simply have to adjust their policies and practices.
Nobody in their right mind will even attempt or even think of leaving the European Union, because they will understand that it is not in their best interest.
Any purchase is one for the future. If you buy a refrigerator, you are making a commitment to the future so that you have food to eat for the next ten years.
The economy of the future might be called the "spaceman economy," in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything.
Capitalism is, in Mao's language, the main contradiction in the world today and so our efforts have to be focused on ending this system and making a new one.
I am a libertarian with a small "l" and a Republican with a capital "R". And I am a Republican with a capital "R" on grounds of expediency, not on principle.
A real gold standard is thoroughly consistent with [classical] liberal principles and I, for one, am entirely in favor of measures promoting its development.
We have a freer world because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. Those two have been the main contributors to freedom in our time.
Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen...We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.
What we are talking about is extended world war...People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move.
Globalism is a scheme for impoverishing First World labor and taking power and influence from the hands of the many and putting them in the hands of the few.