Samuelson Economics Quotes & Sayings

Man does not live by GNP alone. — Paul Samuelson

Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago. — Paul Samuelson

I don't care who writes a nation's laws-or crafts its advanced treaties-if I can write its economics textbooks — Paul Samuelson

I don't care very much for the People Magazine approach to applied economics. — Paul Samuelson

In this age of specialization, I sometimes think of myself as the last 'generalist' in economics, with interests that range from mathematical economics down to current financial journalism. My real interests are research and teaching ... — Paul Samuelson

Kelsoism is not accepted by modern scientific economics as a valid and fruitful analysis of the distribution of income but rather it is regarded as an amateurish and cranky fad. — Paul Samuelson

Probably the only people left who think that economics deserves a Nobel Prize are economists. It confirms their conceit that they're doing 'science' rather than the less tidy task of observing the world and trying to make sense of it. This, after all, is done by mere historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and (heaven forbid) even journalists. Economists are loath to admit that they belong in such raffish company. — Robert J. Samuelson

The appeal to the intellectually insecure is also more important than it might seem. Because economics touches so much of life, everyone wants to have an opinion. Yet the kind of economics covered in the textbooks is a technical subject that many people find hard to follow. How reassuring, then, to be told that it is all irrelevant
that all you really need to know are a few simple ideas! Quite a few supply-siders have created for themselves a wonderful alternative intellectual history in which John Maynard Keynes was a fraud, Paul Samuelson and even Milton Friedman are fools, and the true line of deep economic thought runs from Adam Smith through obscure turn-of-the-century Austrians straight to them. — Paul Krugman

Sooner or later the Internet will become profitable. It's an old story played before by canals, railroads and automobiles. — Paul A. Samuelson

There must have been something in the air of Gary that led one into economics: the first Nobel Prize winner, Paul Samuelson, was also from Gary, as were several other distinguished economists. — Joseph Stiglitz

What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job? — Paul A. Samuelson

An American economist of two generations ago, H. J. Davenport, who was the best friend Thorstein Veblen ever had (Veblen actually lived for a time in Davenport's coal cellar) once said: "There is no reason why theoretical economics should be a monopoly of the reactionaries." All my life I have tried to take this warning to heart, and I dare call it to your favorable attention. — Paul Samuelson

Economics never was a dismal science. I should be a realistic science. — Paul Samuelson