[Franklin Delano] Roosevelt was the central world figure in the two great disasters of this century - the Great Depression and World War II. By contrast, JFK came in relatively peaceful, agreeable times.

Humor is richly rewarding to the person who employs it. It has some value in gaining and holding attention, but it has no persuasive value at all.

I accept the global complex and global trade more than do some of my liberal colleagues because I consider this a wise alternative to national tension and conflict.

Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.

I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.

The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.