Economist Quotes - Page 3

• I am not an economist. I am an honest man!

  Mark Twain

  Honesty, Humorous, Men

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• The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue.

  Eric Alterman

  Years, Year End, Issues

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• It is the business of economists, not to tell us what to do, but show why what we are doing anyway is in accord with proper principles.

  Joan Robinson

  Business, Principles, Accord

  Joan Robinson (1962). “Economic philosophy”, p.21, Transaction Publishers

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• It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

  Adam Smith

  Business, Invisible Hand, Government

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 2 (1776)

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• The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

  Joan Robinson

  Learning, Answers, Deceit

  "Marx, Marshall and Keynes" (1955)

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• The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

  Thomas Sowell

  Scarcity, Lessons, Politics

  Thomas Sowell (1993). “Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays”, Hoover Inst Press

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• People today dont become economists to make the world a better place.

  Tim Harford

  People, World, Today

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• Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Demand, Parrots, Teach

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• An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways of making love but doesn't know any women.

  Art Buchwald

  Money, Men, Making Love

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• Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

  Derek Bok

  College, Thinking, Skills

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• Keynes was a great economist. In every discipline, progress comes from people who make hypotheses, most of which turn out to be wrong, but all of which ultimately point to the right answer. Now Keynes, in 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,' set forth a hypothesis which was a beautiful one, and it really altered the shape of economics. But it turned out that it was a wrong hypothesis. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a great man!

  Milton Friedman

  Beautiful, Mean, Men

  Opinion Journal, July 22, 2006.

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• The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.

  John Holdren

  Design, Challenges, Essentials

  "White House Science Adviser Advocated 'De-Development' of the United States" by Christopher Neefus, www.cnsnews.com. July 28, 2009.

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• I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.

  Milton Friedman

  Cutting, Liberty, Taxation

  "Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause". Book by Richard A. Viguerie, 2006.

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• I would never make a good economist. You know, an economist is a man that can tell you anything about — well, he will tell you what can happen under any given condition — and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's, too.

  Will Rogers

  Business, Inspiration, Economics

  "The Will Rogers Scrapbook".

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• There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Stars, Learning, Science

  "Richard P. Feynman, Teacher". David L. Goodstein, "Physics Today", Volume 42, No. 2, February 1989.

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• Some economists became obsessed with market efficiency and others with market failure. Generally held to be members of opposite schools-freshwater and saltwater, Chicago and Cambridge, liberal and conservative, Austrian and Keynesian-both sides share an essential economic vision. They see their discipline as successful insofar as it eliminates surprise-insofar, that is, as the inexorable workings of the machine override the initiatives of the human actors.

  George Gilder

  School, Successful, Opposites

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• If you hear an expert talking about the Internet and saying it [does] this, or it will do that, you should treat it with the same skepticism that you might treat the comments of an economist about the economy or a weatherman about the weather.

  Danny Hillis

  Motivation, Inspiration, Talking

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• Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Scientist, Social, Wit

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• What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist.

  Douglass North

  War, Book, Reading

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• Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back

  John Maynard Keynes

  Believe, Men, Air

  The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money bk. 6, ch. 24 (1936)

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• I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Government, Decision, Soldier

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• Although economists have studied the sensitivity of import and export volumes to changes in the exchange rate, there is still much uncertainty about just how much the dollar must change to bring about any given reduction in our trade deficit.

  Martin Feldstein

  Dollars, Reduction, Given

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• If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Humble, People, Would Be

  John Maynard Keynes (1952). “Essays in Persuasion”

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• I'm not an economist, and I'm not a proponent of shock therapy.

  Diane Kochilas

  Shock Therapy, Shock, Therapy

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• Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.

  Noam Chomsky

  Growth, Quality, Gone

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