The main insight learned from interdisciplinary studies is the return to specialization

...it is distressing how often one can guess the answer given to an economic question merely by knowing who asks it.

Theories are not rejected by cirsumstantial evidence: it takes a theory to beat a theory.

The delicate and intricate pattern of competition and cooperation in the economic behavior of the hundreds of thousands of citizens of Stockholm offers a challenge to the economist that is perhaps as complex as the challenges of the physicist and the chemist.

...the number of saintly men has not yet risen to the level where the census makes them a separate statistical category.

And yet I would not freely exchange my science for those of my fellow laureates. They are forever confined in their professional discussions to the small numbers of their fellow scientists.

Adam Smith had one overwhelmingly important triumph: he put into the center of economics the systematic analysis of the behavior of individuals pursuing their self-interest under conditions of competition.