If you're not serving the customer, you'd better be serving someone who is.

If you're not serving the customer, you'd better be serving someone who is.

Not understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of resources and wealth. And read more

Not understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of resources and wealth. And when a person does not understand the creation of resources and wealth, the only intellectual alternative is to believe that increasing wealth must be at the cost of someone else. This belief that our good fortune must be an exploitation of others may be the taproot of false prophecy about doom that our evil ways must bring upon us.

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer read more

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation "is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow." Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life.

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment read more

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.

Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money.

Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money.

The Trojans lost the war because they fell for a really dumb trick. hey, there's a gigantic wooden horse outside read more

The Trojans lost the war because they fell for a really dumb trick. hey, there's a gigantic wooden horse outside and all the Greeks have left. Let's bring it inside! Not a formula for long-term survival. Now if they had formed a task force to study the Trojan Horse and report back to a committee, everyone wouldn't have been massacred.. Who says middle management is useless?

In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more read more

In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.