Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'.

If you go back to Adam Smith, you find the idea that markets and market forces operate as an invisible hand. This is the traditional laissez-faire market idea. But today, when economics is increasingly defined as the science of incentive, it becomes clear that the use of incentives involves quite active intervention, either by an economist or a policy maker, in using financial inducements to motivate behavior. In fact, so much though that we now almost take for granted that incentives are central to the subject of economics.

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.

I think very often when we think we are aiming at the best for our children, what we are really doing is trying to position them for competitive success in an intensely driven kind of society. I'm not sure that always leads to the good life or to happiness.

One can imagine a kind of hormonal arms race or genetic arms race, whether it's to do with height or IQ, conceivably, in the future. So it's limitless, and that's another of the features that sets it apart from medical intervention.

Other animals can make sounds, and sounds can indicate pleasure and pain. But language, a distinctly human capacity, isn´t just for registering pleasure and pain. It´s about declaring what is just and what is unjust, and distinguishing right from wrong. We don´t grasp these things silently, and then put words to them; language is the medium through which we discern and deliberate about the good.

I think the reason we might hesitate to pay cash to students for doing well on tests or getting good grades or reading books is that we sense that the monetary payment is an extrinsic reward.