An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.

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

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

We've entered an era when very good, competent people aren't getting jobs. One remedy is to stand out, to self-promote. read more

We've entered an era when very good, competent people aren't getting jobs. One remedy is to stand out, to self-promote. If you do, you're going to get the nod over some co-worker.

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.

When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.

When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.

Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only read more

Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only the ideas of an Edison or a Ford but the ideas of innumerable anonymous people who figure out the design of supermarkets, the location of gasoline stations, and the million mundane things on which our material well-being depends. Societies which have more people carrying out physical acts and fewer people supplying ideas do not have higher standards of living. Quite the contrary.

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never read more

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, read more

It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, the most important economic effect of population size and growth is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge. And this contribution is large enough in the long run to overcome all the costs of population growth.

Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in read more

Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.