Richard Epstein Quotes & Sayings

America's greatness is due in no small measure to our system of government, in which power and authority are deliberately divided. The separation of powers is not a mere "technicality." It is the centerpiece of our Constitution. Our freedoms depend upon it in the future, just as they have in the past. — Richard Allen Epstein

Generally, a betting system for which each wager depends only on present resources and present probability of success is known as a Markov betting system. — Richard Arnold Epstein

From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true. — Richard Arnold Epstein

One of the oldest mythological fables tells of Mercury playing at dice with Selene and winning from her the five days of the epact (thus totaling the 365 days of the year and harmonizing the lunar and solar calendars). — Richard Arnold Epstein

It's very hard to believe that I'm feeling this. It's like I've been dead all these years and suddenly now...in a matter of days and hours, I came to life. I don't want to die again! — Dan Skinner

Feminism is the single most powerful social movement of our time, one that addresses every aspect of human and social life. — Richard Allen Epstein

The desire to avoid short-term hardships leads to major dislocations in [housing] markets. — Richard A. Epstein

One of the great weaknesses of standard libertarian theory is that it tends to push too hard by elevating presumptions into absolutes. — Richard Allen Epstein

At bottom are only two pure forms of legislation - productive and redistributive. — Richard Allen Epstein

That effort to undermine competitive markets is no better in the market for labor than it is for goods and services. — Richard A. Epstein

It was a dream of mine to be an Olympic champion but not a lifelong goal. — Sarah Hughes

What started Baby Jesus growing in Mary's tummy was an angel zoomed down, like a ghost but a really cool one with feathers. Mary was all surprised, she said, "How can this be?" and then, "OK let it be." When Baby Jesus popped out of her vagina on Christmas she put him in a manger but not for the cows to chew, only to warm him up with their blowing because he was magic. — Emma Donoghue

Coin matching and finger flashing were among the first formal games to arise in the history of gambling. The class of Morra games extends back to the pre-Christian era, although not until comparatively recent times have game-theoretic solutions been derived. — Richard Arnold Epstein

Reflecting an amalgam of economics, monetary, and psychological factors, the stock market represents possibly the most subtly intricate game invented by man. — Richard Arnold Epstein

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasisshould be place on appreciation
reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts. — Lilian Katz

Do not get yourself into the illusion that there is something so unique about the question of organ or body parts ... that the general rules of economics do not apply. — Richard Allen Epstein

The essence of the phenomenon of gambling is decision making. The act of making a decision consists of selecting one course of action, or strategy, from among the set of admissible strategies. — Richard Arnold Epstein

In our most Puritan of society, gambling-like other pleasures-is either taxed, restricted to certain hours, or forbidden altogether. Yet the impulse to gamble remains an eternal aspect of the irrationality of man. It finds outlets in business, war, politics, in the formal overtures of the gambling casinos, and in the less ceremonious exchanges among individuals of differing opinions. — Richard Arnold Epstein

The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end. — Richard Allen Epstein

The assumption that individuals act objectively in accordance with purely mathematical dictates to maximize their gain or utility cannot be sustained by empirical observation. — Richard Arnold Epstein

intriguing, not standard Hollywood stuff. He was not a street kid who'd had to claw his way to respectability. His reasonably well-to-do family's roots traced back to George Washington's mother, and he was always proud of the fact that he was distantly related to "one of the founders of our country." Bill was Irish-English-German, "mixed in an American shaker," as he liked to say. His maternal grandfather was a cousin of Warren G. Harding, twenty-ninth president of the United States. Bill had been born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois, on April 17, 1918. When he was three, the family moved to Pasadena, California. His father, William, was an industrial chemist; his mother, Mary, a teacher. He had two younger brothers, Robert (Bob) Westfield Beedle, and Richard (Dick Porter) Beedle. — Edward Z. Epstein

We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves. — Arnold J. Toynbee

While no rigorous proof of an optimal strategy has been achieved, Robbins has proposed the principal of "staying on a winner" and has shown it to be uniformly better than a strategy of random selection. — Richard Arnold Epstein

The pillars of classical liberalism call for flat taxes, with revenues put to limited uses; strong property rights; and free markets. — Richard A. Epstein

The earliest full-length account of a chariot race appears in Book xxiii of the Iliad. — Richard Arnold Epstein

If I have a right to a job, education, health care or a house, then I must be able to specify the person or persons who owe me any or all of these things. — Richard Allen Epstein

The heaven is spherical in shape, and moves as a sphere; the earth too is sensibly spherical in shape, when taken as a whole; in position it lies in the middle of the heavens very much like its center; in size and distance it has the ratio of a point to the sphere of the fixed stars; and it has no motion from place to place. — Ptolemy

There are no conventional games involving conditions of uncertainty without risk. — Richard Arnold Epstein

A proven theorem of game theory states that every game with complete information possesses a saddle point and therefore a solution. — Richard Arnold Epstein

The sense that just about anything goes with the collection of public revenues and the making of public expenditure has contributed mightily to the current malaise. — Richard A. Epstein

The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections. — Richard A. Epstein

Why in the world would someone say, 'I can't afford it' or 'I can't do it' to something they want? Why would someone deny themselves the things they want? It makes no logical sense. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

The protection of private property does more than promote market efficiency; it enhances the level of human freedom in the most intimate and personal parts of our lives. — Richard Allen Epstein

In the end, the British didn't vote to leave because of the euro. They're not even members of the currency union. Even the refugee crisis hardly affected the country. — Jean-Claude Juncker

When you are young in this world, you believe that the class of deductive truths about social matters is larger than it turns out to be. [ ... ] I have discovered, to my infinite regret, that most of the serious debates over the basic principles of any political order have an irreducible empirical content. — Richard Allen Epstein

A weakness of the random-walk model lies in its assumption of instantaneous adjustment, whereas the information impelling a stock market toward its "intrinsic value" gradually becomes disseminated throughout the market place. — Richard Arnold Epstein

Treatment of the apparently whimsical fluctuations of the stock quotations as truly non stationary processes requires a model of such complexity that its practical value is likely to be limited. An additional complication, not encompassed by most stock market models, arises from the manifestation of the market as a nonzero sum game. — Richard Arnold Epstein