Peter Boettke famous quotes

Economics teaches humility because it teaches us more about what we can't do than what we can do
-- Peter Boettke

#Humility #Economics #Teach

If you bound the arms and legs of gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps, weighed him down with chains, threw him in a pool and he sank, you wouldn't call it a 'failure of swimming.' So, when markets have been weighted down by inept and excessive regulation, why call this a 'failure of capitalism'?
-- Peter Boettke

#Swimming #Gold #Legs

We do not need to understand economics in order to experience the benefits of freedom of exchange and production. But we may very well need to understand economics in order to sustain and maintain the institutional framework that enables us to realize the benefits that flow from freedom of exchange and production.
-- Peter Boettke

#Order #Benefits #May

The natural proclivity of democratic governments is to pursue public policies which concentrate benefits on the well-organized and well-informed, and disperse the costs on the unorganized and ill-informed.
-- Peter Boettke

#Government #Cost #Benefits

Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

Man is a perpetually wanting animal.

"Murphys law of economic policy": Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.

Every short statement about economics is misleading (with the possible exception of my present one).

The redistribution of wealth creates dependence on the people to whom it is redistributed, it doesn't incentivize them to create their own wealth.

Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.

Where I am ignorant, Lord, teach me. Where I am wrong, Lord, correct me. Where I am right, Lord, confirm me.

You can't teach colour from Cézanne, you can only teach it from something like this bubble-gum wrapper.

What thwarts us and demands of us the greatest effort is also what can teach us most.