Economist Quotes

“The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts .... He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must be entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood, as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near to earth as a politician.”
― John Maynard Keynes

“In any sane society, a farmer is a billion times more important than an economist.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“In international commerce, India is an ancient country-(19th October, 1899)”
― Virchand Raghavji Gandhi

“My simple explanation of why we human beings, the most advanced species on earth, cannot find happiness, is this: as we evolve up the ladder of being, we find three things: the first, that the tension between the range of opposites in our lives and society widens dramatically and often painfully as we evolve; the second, that the better informed and more intelligent we are, the more humble we have to become about our ability to live meaningful lives and to change anything, even ourselves; and consequently, thirdly, that the cost of gaining the simplicity the other side of complexity can rise very steeply if we do not align ourselves and our lives well.”
― Dr Robin Lincoln Wood

“Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.”
― Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging

“El estudio de la economía no parece exigir ningún don especializado de un orden excepcionalmente superior. ¿No es una disciplina muy fácil comparada con las ramas superiores de la filosofía o la ciencia pura?. Una disciplina fácil de la que muy pocos sobresalen. La paradoja tal vez tenga su explicación en que el economista experto debe poseer una rara combinación de dones. Debe ser en cierta medida matemático, historiador, estadista, filosofo. Debe comprender los símbolos y hablar en palabras. Debe contemplar lo particular desde la óptica de lo general y considerar en un mismo razonamiento lo abstracto y lo concreto.
Debe estudiar el presente pensando en el futuro. Ningún aspecto de la naturaleza del hombre o de sus instituciones debe quedarse al margen de su consideración. Debe ser simultáneamente decidido y desinteresado; tan distante e incorruptible como un artista y, sin embargo a veces tan cerca del suelo como un político”
― John Maynard Keynes

“Have you heard the joke about the chemist, physicist and economist who get wrecked on a desert isle, with a huge supply of canned baked beans as their only food? The chemist says that he can start a fire using the neighbouring palm trees, and calculate the temperature at which a can will explode. The physicist says that she can work out the trajectory of each of the baked beans, so that they can be collected and eaten. The economist says "Hang on guys, you're doing it the hard way. Let's assume we have a can opener.”
― Steve Keen, Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?

“If your expenditure brings you poverty, then you may call yourself a poor but the world will call you a fool.”
― Amit Kalantri

“The distribution of wealth and income is primarily the role and responsibility and freedom of individual people and businesses through their voluntary economic interaction with other people and businesses. And their voluntary exchange of economic value through products, services, and ideas. In this way, social mobility is maximized and a fluid class structure allows for both upward and downward economic movements; this is social justice.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, Principles of a Permaculture Economy

“...lo económico por necesidad toma lugar en el tiempo, es decir, es temporal. Dicho de otro modo, los hechos o datos o acontecimientos que el economísta utiliza para sus fines ocurren todos en el tiempo, en el tiempo histórico. No hay, en efecto, diferencias de naturaleza entre el carácter temporal de un evento que sucedió hace veinticuatro horas y uno que sucedió hace dos siglos. Ambos son perfectamente fait accompli. Queda, desde luego, la actitud que suele provocar -en no pocos- el tiempo más contemporáneo, de discutir los hechos y sus consecuencias como si no estuvieran ya consumados, y sólo porque se tiene información acerca de las opciones que estaban abiertas y que no se adoptaron.”
― Asdrúbal Baptista, Itinerario por la Economía Política

“Heri kuishi kama maskini mwenye pesa nyingi kuliko tajiri mwenye mifuko iliyotoboka, kuliko kusema mbele za watu kwamba pesa haijakupa furaha. Wengi hupata jeuri ya kusema hivyo kutokana na umaskini wa watu wanaowazunguka.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Maskini mwenye pesa nyingi ni tajiri bahili. Tajiri mwenye mifuko iliyotoboka ni tajiri badhiri.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Lo básico es dejar amplio margen para el
aprendizaje”
― Friedrich A. von Hayek

“Ha de decirse que para el científico, como convicción primigenia e indecible, hay una línea divisoria muy nítida entre la realidad del mundo que sucede y acaece con total prescindencia de lo que pueda hacerse o moldearse, y la realidad del mundo que se presta a la acción, al arte o al conjuro. Esto es, hay cosas que se dan u ocurren por sí mismas, cosas de naturaleza cabría decir, y cosas que pueden producirse o prevenirse a voluntad. Sin la actitud que envuelve esta convicción, debe afirmarse, no hay lugar para el conocimiento científico, independientemente de que el destino de ese conocimiento al final sea servirle de fundamento al desarrollo de eficientes técnicas para la acción o la manipulación.”
― Asdrúbal Baptista, Itinerario por la Economía Política

“Mtu anayesema pesa haijampa furaha hana nia ya kusaidia watu.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Toa msaada katika jamii iliyosaidia kukulea ulipokuwa mdogo.”
― Enock Maregesi

“بعد موت النبي آدم تفرق أبناءه لشعوب كثيرة، وانحرفت عن المنهج السماوي الذي وضعه الله لها، إما بالعصيان وأن النسيان، وبالتالي أرسل الله لهم من يعد البشرية الي مسارها الصحيح، وكان الحدث بنبوة ادريس، فقد هاجر من العراق الي مصر واتخذها حصناً له ولدعوته فبنى المدن وكرس حياته لنشر العلوم، فهنا لوتحدثنا عن منهجه في الحرب، والعلم بها وتجهيز الناس لها من مأكل مشرب، فهنا استوجب أن يتبع منهج أو يتخذ من الهدى الالهي البداية في فكر اقتصادي أو تطويع أوامر الله لهذا الامر.
فنبوة ادريس هو تصويب لحياة الانسان وترشيد لموارده وتحييد سلوكه من المفرط المسرف إلي المرشّد المقتصد كما جاء في قوله تعالى "ومنهم مقتصد".”
― محمد الكتبي

“Economics [...] has the advantage of joining an extremely simple model of human nature with extremely complicated mathematical formulae that non-specialists can rarely understand, much less criticize.”
― David Graeber, Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

“Economics [...] maximizing models are really arguing is that “people will always seek to maximize something,” [...] All they really add to analysis is a set of assumptions about human nature. The assumption, most of all, that no one ever does anything primarily out of concern for others; that whatever one does, one is only trying to get something out of it for oneself. In common English, there is a word for this attitude. It’s called “cynicism.” Most of us try to avoid people who take it too much to heart. In economics, apparently, they call it “science.”
― David Graeber, Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

“Jean-Baptiste Say may have coined the term 'entrepreneur' but he totally missed the opportunity to put it on a t-shirt and sell it.”
― Ryan Lilly

“When an economist attempts to prove that it is "irrational" to vote in national elections (because the effort expended outweighs the likely benefit to the individual voter), they use the term because they do not wish to say "irrational for actors for whom civic participation, political ideals, of the common good are not values in themselves, but who view public affairs only in terms of personal advantage.”
― David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

“John Law’s 'Money and Trade Considered' is the most influential but least acknowledged work in the history of economics.”
― Gavin John Adams, John Law: The Lauriston Lecture and Collected Writings

“John Law left us with a legacy that continues to have a profound impact in the spheres of economics, public policy, finance, and, as a result, the very foundations upon which modern society has been constructed.”
― Gavin John Adams, John Law: The Lauriston Lecture and Collected Writings

“John Law was a first rate economist. His 'Money and Trade Considered' was a tremendous academic achievement that has formed the (unacknowledged) basis of many of the advancements in our understanding of the economic environment in which we all live.”
― Gavin John Adams, John Law: The Lauriston Lecture and Collected Writings

“The investment in the education of girls may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world.”
― Lawrence H. Summers

“Economists have always recognised that some kind of initial accumulation was necessary for the rise of capitalism. Adam Smith called this ‘previous accumulation’, and claimed that it came about because a few people worked really hard and saved their earnings– an idyllic tale that still gets repeated in economics textbooks. But historians see it as naïve. This was no innocent process of saving. It was a process of plunder.”
― Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

“An Economist analyses the gain of prosperity and the pain of poverty.”
― Deborah Samraj