Tyler and I are looking for a good epigram, quote, maxim etc. which will be placed on the copyright page of Modern Principles of Economics, our forthcoming textbook (micro and macro). It should be no more than a few lines. The person who provides the best entry, as judged by us, will receive a signed copy of our book and, if we use the entry, much gratitude!
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It’s not specifically on topic, but a good quote for students generally, and particularly future entrepreneurs:
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” George Bernard Shaw
The most fundamental phenomena in the universe is relationship.
Jonas Salk
Anatomy of Reality p.44
“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” – Noam Chomsky
modern priciples of economics
-harnessing the internet to get free tag lines
No economics Theory survives contact with the economy
Depending on the university where the text is used, you could go with: “It was my understanding that there would be no math.”
Or you could use
“The Cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Capitalism does not merely make people better off, it makes them better.” – George Will
“Mathematics †¦ has been done and done well by Hellenic aristocrats, Chinese sages, Arab astrologers, schoolmen of the Middle Ages, Renaissance upstarts, Baroque swashbucklers, squires and parsons and lords of the Enlightenment, as well as, more recently professors hired to lecture to shabby auditoriums in the midst of industrial slums †¦”
C. Truesdell
“Is There a Philosophy of Science?”
“Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” G. K. Chesterton
When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.
William James
“Maybe the main function of economics in general is not, as we usually think, the systematic building of theories and models, or their empirical estimation. Maybe we are intellectual sanitation workers. The world is full of nonsense, full of things people and institutions know that ‘ain’t so.’ Maybe the higher function of economics is to hold out against nonsense”. (R. Solow, “…”, Amercian Economic Review, May 1997, p108)
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.† – John Maynard Keynes
“The study of economics won’t keep you out of the breadline; but at least you’ll know why you’re there.” Frank Ward, taken from James Buchanan.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” -Friedrich Hayek
or
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” -Henry Hazlitt
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Improve the technology of fishing, continue to treat fishing grounds as a commons, and collapse the ecosystem.
(not holding my breath, either)
Advertise here.
I have to second Charlie Wood’s suggestion. Witty!
Welcome to Economics: Study the marvel of creation and the destruction of redistribution.
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.” -Locke
“According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.” -Cicero
Is there a chapter on Pareto efficiency?
“This textbook is too big to fail.”
Perhaps this would reflect the realities of student life.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Samuel Johnson, from James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791), September 19, 1777
“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.” Marcus Aurelius
Teaching is like telling a smaller lie every day.
There are no needs, only wants. (This was the written on the board in my HS econ class the first day.)
or
In Economics there is no moral or immoral. Only scarcity and tradeoffs.
What’s wrong with Marshall’s “Natura non facit saltum”? Being in Latin, it will give your modern readers something to puzzle about.
“Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary.” –Steven Landsburg
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
-Marcus Aurelius
“One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.” – John Stuart Mill
“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” – John Stuart Mill
“The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.” – William Beveridge
“Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference – the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.” – Frederic Bastiat
“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” – Frederic Bastiat
“If socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it.” – Frederic Bastiat
Economics is the study of how to get the most out of life.
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.† – attributed to Yogi Berra
“Since the science of economics is primarily a set of tools, as opposed to a subject matter, then no subject, however offbeat, need be beyond its reach.”
- Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics.
My favorite (with all due respect for economists) is more salient than any other statement I’ve come across: “Economists observe the past and make lengthy mathematical comments, then bicker with each other about them.” I’m not sure who this quote is from.
My favorite quote from J.M. Keynes “I would rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong”
We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed to the rich and the great, than to the wise and the virtuous… To deserve, to acquire, to enjoy the respect and admiration of mankind are the great objects of ambition and emulation. -Adam Smith (pg. 72 of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Cambridge Texts version)
I think it is timely and a clear early notion of signalling.
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.- Aristotle, Politics
“There is no problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by scarcity, necessity and human ingenuity.”
- anonymous
The ruler of the world is the Whirlwind, that has unseated Zeus. – Aristophanes
Aggghhhhhhh!!!!!
-Lexington Steele
“In the field of observation, chance only favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur
“You can observe a lot by just watching.” – Yogi Berra
Learn economics as a set of intellectual tools for asking questions, analyzing data, and incrementally understanding human interactions for pleasure and profit.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
– from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
“Before we can explain why people commit mistakes, we must first explain why they should ever be right.” Hayek
“Modern Principles” – an oxymoron to some, an unnecessary necessity to others.
“Modern Principles” – an oxymoron to some, an unnecessary necessity to others.
“The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built.” (Ludwig von Mises)
“…when people say that breast-feeding is “free,† I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.” (Hanna Rosin, Atlantic Monthly)
“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” (Sir Winston Churchill)
After many years of development, Economics has reached the degree of precision where the authors of this book could not agree on whether the US was having a “credit crunch” late 2008. This is roughly equivilent to a science of Metereology where two specialists can not agree about whether a hurricane is going on.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” -Albert Einstein, possibly commenting on economic models.
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