The perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior.

It is absurd to suppose we can think of nature as a system apart from knowledge, for it is knowledge that is increasingly determining the course of nature.

[The historical] development in the international system may almost be defined as the process by which we pass from stable war to stable peace.

[The consumer is] the supreme mover of economic order... for whom all goods are made and towards whom all economic activity is directed.

Reality, in its quantitative aspect, must be considered as a system of populations... The general study of the equilibria and dynamics of populations seems to have no name; but as it has probably reached its highest development in the biological study known as 'ecology,' this name may well be given to it.

Economists are like computers. They need to have facts punched into them.

A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.