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Quotes by Economist
"Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it."
51
"When we say that the persistence of competition is ensured by fate, we mean that individual freedom is so guaranteed. The one thing to which fate binds us is liberty."
51
"Well, by the standards of a lot of countries, by Latin American standards, it wasn't so bad."
51
"Experience alone can give a final answer. The knowledge gained in a few years by a commission of the kind suggested would be worth more than volumes of mere assertions and contradictions."
51
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
51
"For the etatist, money is a creature of the State, and the esteem in which money is held is the economic expression of the respect or prestige enjoyed by the State. The more powerful and the richer the State, the better its money. Thus, during the War, it was asserted that 'the monetary standard of the victors' would ultimately be the best money. Yet victory and defeat on the battlefield can exercise only an indirect influence on the value of money."
51
"The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence."
51
"Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product."
51
"Economic history shows us a continual increase in the demand for money. The characteristic feature of the development of the demand for money is its intensification; the growth of division of labour and consequently of exchange transactions, which have constantly become more and more indirect and dependent on the use of money, have helped to bring this about, as well as the increase of population and prosperity."
51
"I was born in Champaign in 1918. From the neighborhood elementary and intermediate schools, I went to the University High School in the twin city, Urbana."
51
"The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here."
51
"The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will."
51
"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."
51
"Whenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent."
50
"The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people."
50
"Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect."
50
"No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money."
50
"Every good cause is worth some inefficiency."
50
"Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen."
50
"The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is."
50
"Socialism appeals to better classes and has far more strength. Attack the state and you excite feelings of loyalty even among the disaffected classes; but attack the industrial system and appeal to the state, and you may have loyalty in your favor."
50
"An intriguing paradox of the 1990s is that it isn't called a decade of greed."
50
"Although I was not aware of it at the time, the experience of growing up during the Great Depression was to have a profound impact on my intellectual and professional career."
50
"The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity."
50
"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it."
50
"Where the currency depreciation is a result of government inflation carried out by the issue of notes, it is possible to avert its disastrous effect on economic calculation by conducting all bookkeeping in a stable money instead. But so far as the depreciation is a depreciation of gold, the world money, there is no such easy way out."
50
"There are only two ways of telling the complete truth - anonymously and posthumously."
49
"In 1958, I came to Chicago where I have remained."
49
"A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better."
49
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