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Home > Financial Quotes > Economics

Financial Quotes

Economics Quotes

  • "Economists can be called the worldly philosophers for they sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of man's activities—his drive for wealth."
    Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005), US economist
    Source: The Worldly Philosophers (1953), Introduction
  • "When the facts change, I change my mind."
    John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist
    Source: Quoted in Treasury of Investment Wisdom (Bernice Cohen, 1999)
  • "The ideas of economists and political philosophers … are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."
    John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist
    Source: The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (1936)
  • "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 (1883–1946), British economist
    Source: Essays in Persuasion (1931)
  • "The modern history of economic theory is a tale of evasions of reality."
    Thomas Balogh (1905–1985), British economist
    Referring to classical economics.
    Source: The Irrelevance of Conventional Economics (1982)
  • "Economics is as much a study in fantasy and aspiration as in hard numbers—maybe more so."
    Theodore Roszak (1933–1981), US historian, writer, and editor
    Source: The Making of a Counter Culture (1995), Introduction
  • "Trickle-down theory—the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."
    J. K. Galbraith (1908–2006), US economist and diplomat
    Source: The Culture of Contentment (1992)
  • "In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability."
    J. K. Galbraith (1908–2006), US economist and diplomat
    Source: New York Times Magazine (June 1970)
  • "Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists."
    J. K. Galbraith (1908–2006), US economist and diplomat
    Source: Quoted in The Book of Incomes (Gerald Krefetz and Philip Gittelman, 1982)
  • "The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary; no economist should be denied it, and not many are."
    J. K. Galbraith (1908–2006), US economist and diplomat
    Source: A Life in Our Times (1981)
  • "Economics limps along with one foot in untested hypotheses and the other in untestable slogans."
    Joan Robinson (1903–1983), British economist
    Source: “Metaphysics, Morals and Science,” Economic Philosophy (1962)
  • "A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that is is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties."
    Karl Marx (1818–1883), German political and economic philosopher
    Source: Das Kapital (1867), vol. 1
  • "Unfortunately monetarism, like Marxism, suffered the only fate that for a theory is worse than death: it was put into practice."
    Ian Gilmour (1926–2007), British politician
    Source: Dancing with Dogma (1992)
  • "Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you but it never does to anyone else."
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973), US president
    Source: Quoted in A Life in our Times (J. K. Galbraith, 1981)
  • "Neoclassical economics … has uncovered important truths about the nature of money and markets because its fundamental model of rational self-interested human behavior is correct about 80 percent of the time."
    Francis Fukuyama (1952–), US economist and writer
    Source: Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995)
  • "As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it."
    John Ruskin (1819–1900), British art critic and writer
    Source: “The Roots of Honour,” Unto This Last (1862)
  • "Everybody is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure."
    Anthony Eden (Earl of Avon) (1897–1977), British prime minister
    Source: Quoted in “Sayings of the Week,” Observer (London) (June 17, 1956)
  • "We're a me-me-me generation. We're borrowing the savings of every nation in the world. We're … piling up a big tab. Now, I may think we're too big to have a run on us. You may think that. But it's possible that God does not."
    Paul Samuelson (1915–), US economist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Economics
    Source: Interview, The New Economy? (Online NewsHour, January 13, 2000)
  • "As the economy gets better, everything else gets worse."
    Art Buchwald (1925–2007), US journalist
    Source: Time (January 31, 1972)
  • "One of the soundest rules to remember when making forecasts in the field of economics is that whatever is to happen is happening already."
    Sylvia Porter (1913–1991), US journalist and finance expert
    Source: Attributed to
  • "One speaks with great respect of economists, if only because they represent such a variety of opinions."
    Robert Menzies (1894–1978), Australian prime minister
    Source: Sydney Morning Herald (March 14, 1964)
  • "If freedom were not so economically efficient it certainly wouldn’t stand a chance."
    Milton Friedman (1912–2006), US economist and winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics
    Source: Quoted in “Sayings of the Week,” Observer (London) (March 1, 1987)
  • "Economists may not know how to run the economy, but they know how to create shortages or gluts simply by regulating prices below the market, or artificially supporting them from above."
    Milton Friedman (1912–2006), US economist and winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics
    Source: Attributed (1962)
  • "Economists are always recommending the elimination of this or that market imperfection … no astrophysicist recommends the elimination of planets that he does not like."
    Lester Thurow (1938–), US economist, management theorist, and writer
    Referring to how economists relate to economic realities.
    Source: Dangerous Currents (1983)
  • "Humans have trouble with economics, as you may have noticed, and not just because economic circumstances sometimes cause them to starve. Humans seem to have an innate inability to pay attention to economic principles."
    P. J. O'Rourke (1947–), US humorist and journalist
    Source: Eat the Rich (1998), ch. 1
  • "Economists got away from really questioning how the world works, how decisions actually got made. If something doesn’t conform to neoclassical models … people are not somehow behaving themselves properly."
    W. Brian Arthur (1945–), US economist
    Source: Interview, Strategy + Business (April–June 1998)
  • "The invisible hand is not perfect. Indeed, the invisible hand is a little bit arthritic … I'm a believer in free markets, but I think we need to be less naïve. We need to accept that markets give us pretty good solutions, but occasionally they will lock in something inferior."
    W. Brian Arthur (1945–), US economist
    Source: Interview, Strategy + Business (April–June 1998)
  • "What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things that enable its citizens to live, but the things that enable it to make war."
    Simone Weil (1909–1943), French philosopher and activist
    Source: The Need for Roots (1935)
  • "We may be in a rapidly evolving international financial system with all the bells and whistles of the so-called new economy. But the old-economy rules of prudence are as formidable as ever. We violate them at our own peril."
    Alan Greenspan (1926–), US economist and former chairman of US Federal Reserve Board
    Speech to the Financial Crisis Conference, Council on Foreign Relations, New York.
    Source: “Global Challenges” (July 12, 2000)
  • "I think there are two areas where new ideas are terribly dangerous—economics and sex. By and large, it's all been tried before, and if it's new, it's probably illegal or unhealthy."
    Felix Rohatyn (1928–), US investment company executive
    Source: Quoted in Business Babble: A Cynic's Dictionary of Corporate Jargon (David Olive, 1991)
  • "An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living."
    Nicholas Chamfort (1741–1794), French writer
    Source: Products of the Perfected Civilization: Selected Writings (1969)
  • "Inflation might be called prosperity with high blood pressure."
    Arnold H. Glasgow, US psychologist
    Source: Quoted in Readers Digest (1966)
  • "Waiting for supply-side economics to work is like leaving the landing lights on for Amelia Earhart."
    Walter Heller (1915–1987), US economist
    Source: Quoted in 500 of the Most Witty, Acerbic, and Erudite Things Ever Said About Money (Philip Jenks, 2002)
  • "Having a little inflation is like being a little bit pregnant."
    Leon Henderson (1895–1986), US administrator
    Source: Quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas For Our Time (Laurence J. Peter, 1977)
  • "An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible."
    Alfred A. Knopf (1892–1984), US publisher
    Source: Quoted in Deflation: What Happens When Prices Fall (Chris Farrell, 2004)
  • "There are two things you are better off not watching in the making: sausages and econometric estimates."
    Edward E. Leamer (1944–), US economist
    Source: “Let’s Take the Con Out of Econometrics,” American Economic Review (1983)
  • "All the great economic ills the world has known this century can be directly traced back to the London School of Economics."
    N. M. Perera (1905–1979), Sri Lankan politician
    Source: Quoted in 500 of the Most Witty, Acerbic, and Erudite Things Ever Said About Money (Philip Jenks, 2002)
  • "We hate inflation, but we love everything that causes it."
    William Simon (1927–2000), US Secretary of the US Treasury
    Source: Speech (1974)
  • "The Robert Mugabe school of economics provides a salutary warning about uncontrolled monetary expansion in generating hyper-inflation. The road to Harare is not as long as we might hope."
    Vince Cable (1943–), British Liberal Democrat politician
    On the British government's anti-recessionary policies.
    Source: Independent (London) (January 8, 2009)
  • "Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn’t get anything right. I wanted to find out the reason. They would say their models are not perfect. But data show that you do much worse using their models than you would without them. It's a bullshit science."
    Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960–), Lebanese-born US academic and writer, former derivatives trader
    Source: Interviewed in Washington Post (March 15, 2009)
  • "Like other branches of the study of society, economics remains culturally parochial, and its underlying concepts based on a few centuries of Western experience."
    John Gray (1948–), British academic and writer
    Source: London Review of Books (November 19, 2009)
  • "Although there are shining exceptions, most … practise a modern form of medieval scholasticism—of no use or interest to man or beast."
    Roger Bootle, British economist, financial analyst, and author
    On modern economists.
    Source: The Trouble With Markets (2009)
  • "Spread the truth—the laws of economics are like the laws of engineering. One set of laws works everywhere."
    Lawrence H. Summers (1954–), US president of Harvard University, economist, and politician
    Source: Quoted in The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein, 2007)

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