Things economic and social move by their own momentum and the ensuing situations compel individuals and groups to behave in certain ways whatever they may wish to do-not indeed by destroying their freedom of choice but by shaping the choosing mentalities and by narrowing the list of possibilities from which to choose.
Joseph A. SchumpeterRecognition of the inevitability of comprehensive bureaucratization does not solve the problems that arise out of it.
Joseph A. SchumpeterPoliticians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can't bother about where they're going.
Joseph A. SchumpeterThose revolutions are not strictly incessant; they occur in discrete rushes which are separated from each other by spans of comparative quiet. The process as a whole works incessantly however, in the sense that there always is either revolution or absorption of the results of revolution, both together forming what are known as business cycles.
Joseph A. SchumpeterThe spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepareโall this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases. He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else.
Joseph A. Schumpeter