Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes

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• Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Fun, Believe, Population Problem

  "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth" by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1966.

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• Don't go to great trouble to optimize something that never should be done at all. Aim to enhance total systems properties, such as creativity, stability, diversity, resilience, and sustainability - whether they are easily measured or not.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Creativity, Diversity, Resilience

  Attributed in "Systems Thinkers" by Ramage Magnus and Karen Shipp, (p. 116), 2009.

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• As long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption. Earth has become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Technology, Reality, Men

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• Deciding under uncertainty is bad enough, but deciding under an illusion of certainty is catastrophic.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Illusion, Enough, Certainty

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• The only religion that still demands human sacrifice is nationalism.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Sacrifice, Demand, Humans

  Attributed in "Democracy, socialization, and conflicting loyalties in East and West" by Russell Francis Farnen, (p. 52), 1996.

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• Economic progress means the discovery and application of better ways of doing things to satisfy our wants. The piping of water to a household that previously dragged it from a well, the growing of two blades of grass where one grew before, the development of a power loom that enables one man to weave ten times as much as he could before, the use of steam power and electric power instead of horse or human power - all these things clearly represent economic progress.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Horse, Mean, Men

  "Principles of Economic Policy". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 23, 1958.

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• [The consumer is] the supreme mover of economic order... for whom all goods are made and towards whom all economic activity is directed.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Order, Economic, Made

  "Innovation by Demand". Book by Andrew McMeekin, p. 131, 2002.

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• Know this: though love is weak and hate is strong, Yet hate is short, and love is very long.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Strong, Hate, Love Is

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• The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Moving, Decision, World

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• A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Government, Unseen, World

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• The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all experiences are of the past, all decisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Past, Bridges, Decision

  Foreword of "The image of the future" by Fred Polak, (p. V), 1972.

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• Economics has been incurably growth-oriented and addicted to everybody growing richer, even at the cost of exhaustion of resources and pollution of the environment.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Addiction, Growth, Cost

  Kenneth E. Boulding (1985). “Collected Papers: Toward the Twenty-First Century : Political Economy, Social Systems, and World Peace”, University Press of Colorado

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• Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Rigor Mortis, Economics, Mathematics

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• Equilibrium is a figment of the human imagination.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Imagination, Figments, Equilibrium

  Kenneth E. Boulding (1985). “Collected Papers: Toward the Twenty-First Century : Political Economy, Social Systems, and World Peace”, University Press of Colorado

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• If the society toward which we are developing is not to be a nightmare of exhaustion, we must use the interlude of the present era to develop a new technology which is based on a circular flow of materials such that the only sources of man's provisions will be his own waste products.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Technology, Men, Use

  "Economics As a Science". Book by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1970.

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• Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man? ... Does man have any responsibility for the preservation of a decent balance in nature, for the preservation of rare species, or even for the indefinite continuance of his race?

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Responsibility, Men, Race

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• The future is bound to surprise us, but we don't have to be dumbfounded.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Future, Surprise, Bounds

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• Physicists only talk to physicists, economists to economists-worse still, nuclear physicists only talk to nuclear physicists and econometricians to econometricians. One wonders sometimes if science will not grind to a stop in an assemblage of walled-in hermits, each mumbling to himself words in a private language that only he can understand.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Science, Understanding, Nuclear

  Kenneth E. Boulding (2017). “Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms”, p.149, Routledge

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• We make our tools, and then they shape us.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Tools, Shapes

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• The perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Loss, Perception, Survival

  "Evolutionary economics" by Kenneth Boulding, Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, (p. 104), 1981.

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• In 1859 the human race discovered a huge treasure chest in its basement. This was oil and gas, a fantastically cheap and easily available source of energy. We did, or at least some of us did, what anybody does who discovers a treasure in the basement - live it up, and we have been spending this treasure with great enjoyment

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Race, Oil, Energy

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• Theories without facts may be barren, but facts without theories are meaningless.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  May, Facts, Barren

  Kenneth E. Boulding (1941). “Economic Analysis”

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• There is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise this God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Soul, Mind, Unity

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• The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich vareity of the world.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Thinking, Tree, Individuality

  "Evidences for an Administrative Science: A review of the Administrative Science Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2". Administrative Science Quarterly. Volume 3, No. 1, p. 14, 1958.

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• Every culture, or subculture, is defined by a set of common values, that is, generally agreed upon preferences. Without a core of common values a culture cannot exist, and we classify society into cultures and subcultures precisely because it is possible to identify groups who have common values.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Groups, Culture, Common

  "Economics As A Moral Science" by Kenneth E. Boulding, in "American Economic Review", 59 (1), (p. 12), March 1969.

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