If one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of typewriters, and lets them clap away, there is a certainty that one of them will come out with an exact version of the 'Iliad.'

This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.

Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially suppressing volatility in it.

Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.

Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter--it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea.

Muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without risk, change without aesthetics, age without values, food without nourishment, power without fairness, facts without rigor, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, complication without depth, fluency without content; these are the sins to remember.

Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever.