Textbook Contest – Results

Many thanks for all the excellent suggestions for an epigraph for Modern Principles.  Here were some of our favorites:

"He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past
endurance, it was like listening to someone interminably recounting a
long and stupid dream."

Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Dispossessed"

We liked that this has an exoteric and esoteric meaning but we suspect that it would be hard to get past "the Corporation."  (The esoteric meaning?  The novel is about a communist utopia so it's really no surprise that the characters (and the author) think that elementary economics texts are boring!). Suggested by Dave C.

"Competition is good for consumers."
N. Gregory Mankiw

Suggested by Eli Dourado.

"Economics is really about understanding the world — and changing it
— and not in a messianic fashion but in an honest fashion."
James J. Heckman

A close one.  Suggested by Jared.

Advertise Here.
Suggested by Alex Tabarrok.

I liked it!

And the winner is:

Economics is the study of how to get the most out of life.

I thought this phrase, which was suggested by Scott Gustafson, captured the joie de vivre and the love of economics that Tyler and I have tried to bring to Modern Principles.  It's unclear who said this first, although nicely for us Russ Roberts used this phrase to describe Tyler's book Discover Your Inner Economist, thus there is some history.

Thanks everyone for your many helpful and excellent suggestions!

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