Frank Knight Quotes

The truth seems . . . to be that in the ultimate and essential problem the economic factor is relatively superficial and unimportant.

I have been....moved to wonder whether my job is a job or a racket, whether economists, and particularly economic theorists, may not be in the position that Cicero, citing Cato, ascribed to the augurs of Rome-that they should cover their faces or burst into laugher when they met on the street.

Goods move in response to price differences from points of low to points of higher price, the movement tending to obliterate the price difference and come to rest.

Knowledge is more a matter of learning than of the exercise of absolute judgment. Learning requires time, and in time the situation dealt with, as well as the learner, undergoes change.

It is true practically if not altogether without exception that the changes studied by any science tend to equilibrate or neutralize the forces which bring them about, and finally to come to rest.

The possibility of saying anything about a thing rests on the assumption that it preserves its identity, or continues to be the same thing in the respect described, that it will behave in future situations as it has in past.

Market competition is the only form of organization which can afford a large measure of freedom to the individual.

If all properly economic problems were solved once for all . . . the social struggle and strife would . . . [not necessarily] be reduced in amount or intensity . . . in the absence of some moral revolution which could by no means be assumed to follow in consequence of this change itself.

...even professors of economics, to say nothing of the public, do not generally have scientific minds.

There is no sense in making statements that will not continue to be true after they are made.

Always history is being made; opinions attitudes and institutions change, and there is evolution in the nature of capitalism

One-third of your plays are special teams, so to block a punt and get good field position out of it and score was big.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.

Never waste any time you can spend sleeping.

We have to adapt and overcome, that's all we can do.

In the long run all producers are forced to use the most efficient methods or give place to others who do.

Sociology isthescience of talk, and there is onlyone law in sociology. Bad talk drives out good.

All science is static in the sense that it describes the unchanging aspects of things.

Large scale collective bargaining . . . is merely a seductive name for bilateral monopoly, and means either adjudication of conflicts in terms of power, or deadlock and stoppage, usually injuring outside people more than the immediate parties to the dispute.

Costs merely register competing attractions.

Conflicting economic interest is relatively unimportant as a cause of war.