Disequilibrium Quotes

• Human interactions, stimulated as they are by disequilibrium, never achieve balance. In even the most favorable transaction, one party whether he realizes it or not must always come out the worse.

  Jack Vance

  Party, Balance, Realizing

  Jack Vance (2011). “Rhialto the Marvellous”, p.73, Hachette UK

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• From the equilibrium and spontaneous order of Adam Smith and his heirs, from invisible-handed markets and perfect competition, supply and demand, and rewards and punishments, I was pushed to theories of disequilibrium and disorder, and information and noise, as the keys to understanding economic progress.

  George Gilder

  Order, Punishment, Keys

  George Gilder (2013). “Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World”, p.20, Regnery Publishing

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• When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you’re not in it, there’s a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.

  Adrienne Rich

  Teacher, Mirrors, Psychics

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• Man is the only animal who does not feel at home in nature, who can feel evicted from paradise, the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem that he has to solve and from which he cannot escape. He cannot go back to the prehuman state of harmony with nature, and he does not know where he will arrive if he goes forward. Man's existential contradiction results in a state of constant disequilibrium. This disequilibrium distinguishes him from the animal, which lives, as it were, in harmony with nature.

  Erich Fromm

  Home, Animal, Men

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, p.373, Open Road Media

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• When someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing. Yet you know you exist and others like you, that this is a game with mirrors. It takes some strength of soul--and not just individual strength, but collective understanding--to resist this void, this nonbeing, into which are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard.

  Adrienne Rich

  Teacher, Mirrors, Individual Strength

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• Nothing exists except by virtue of a disequilibrium, an injustice. All existence is a theft paid for by other existences; no life flowers except on a cemetery.

  Remy de Gourmont

  Life, Flower, Injustice

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• Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

  Erich Fromm

  Life, Animal, Men

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics”, p.40, Routledge

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• A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Artist, Suffering, Energy

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1949). “Truth and Fantasy from My Life”

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• In certain circumstances, financial markets can affect the so-called fundamentals which they are supposed to reflect. When that happens, markets enter into a state of dynamic disequilibrium and behave quite differently from what would be considered normal by the theory of efficient markets. Such boom/bust sequences do not arise very often, but when they do, they can be very disruptive, exactly because they affect the fundamentals of the economy.

  George Soros

  Would Be, Fundamentals, Normal

  "Theory of Reflexivity". George Soros' speech at the MIT Department of Economics World Economy Laboratory Conference in Washington, D.C., www.valuewalk.com. April 26, 1994.

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• The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

  George Soros

  Reality, Self, Financial

  "My Interview with George Soros: End of Financial Crisis Could Be in Sight". Interview with Nathan Gardels, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 12, 2008.

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• The catch word is equilibrium again, informed the field what are conventional weapons or nuclear weapons of different qualities. You cannot make up for a actual or perceived disequilibrium in the conventional field by having more nuclear weapons.

  Helmut Schmidt

  Quality, Different, Nuclear

  WGBH-TV Interview, lsopenvault01.wgbh.org. November 12, 1987.

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• The far object of a training system is to prepare the combat officer mentally so that he can cope with the unusual and unexpected as if it were the altogether normal and give him poise in a situation where all else is in disequilibrium.

  Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall

  War, Giving, Training

  Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall (1954). “Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War”

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• The short-term international capital market is shrunken and erratic, and cannot be relied upon to cushion the effects of tendencies to disequilibrium in the balance of payments.

  Gunnar Myrdal

  Balance, Banking, Erratic

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