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Quotes about economics

133 quotes from 78 people

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It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor.
David Graeber1961–2020Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, “Age of the Great Capitalist Empires”, p. 350
- Work
For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another.
Che Guevara1928–1967Afro-Asian Conference (1965)
- Politics
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Letter to Robert Morris (30 April 1781)
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Report on Manufactures (1791)
I may be only a “fish and chip shop lady”, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping.
Pauline Hansonborn 1954Maiden Speech as the Member for Oxley (1996)
- Clever Jabs
I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process.
Benjamin Harrison1833–1901Speech in Rutland, Vermont (28 August 1891) as reported in The New York Times (29 August 1891), p. 5
- Work
If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed.
Stephen Hawking1942–2018“Science AMA Series: Stephen Hawking AMA Answers!”, reddit.com (8 October 2015)
- Technology
The more the state “plans” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
Friedrich Hayek1899–1992The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter 6: Planning and the Rule of Law
- Government
I must confess that if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it.
Friedrich Hayek1899–1992Nobel Banquet Speech (1974)
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
Friedrich Hayek1899–1992The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.
- Knowledge
Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.
Rutherford B. Hayes1822–1893Diary (16 February 1890)
- Money
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
Rutherford B. Hayes1822–1893Diary (12 December 1890)
- Money
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961Notes on the Next War (1935)
- Politics
- War & Peace
Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 1080 (1896) (Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Holmes dissenting).
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
Herbert Hoover1874–1964Address to the Nebraska Republican Conference, Lincoln, Nebraska (16 January 1936)
- Comedy
- Youth