88 quotes
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)
Equilibrium is a figment of the human imagination.
Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods.
Communication can only take place among equals.
The most fundamental form of integrative power is the power of love.
One reason why the progressive state is 'cheerful' is that social conflict is diminished by it.
The basic bond of any society, culture, subculture, or organization is 'a public image.
We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality.
p. 96 quoted in: Andrew Mearman (2011)
Mathematicians themselves set up standards of generality and elegance in their exposition which are a bar to understand.
We all, or nearly all, consent If wages rise by ten per cent It puts a choice before the nation Of unemployment or inflation.
Kenneth Boulding (1951)
DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.
The only religion that still demands human sacrifice is nationalism.
to Kenneth Boulding in: Russell Francis Farnen (1996)
A distinguished economist, on being asked to define the subject matter of his science, once replied, "Economics is what economists do."
The organization of science into disciplines sets up a series of ghettos with remarkable distances of artificial social space between them.
Kenneth Boulding (1973)
The concept of a value-free science is absurd.
p. 4 cited in: John B. Davis (2011)
Almost every organization... exhibits two faces — a smiling face which it turns toward its members and a frowning face which it turns to the world outside.
p. 10 as cited in: Joseph T. Mahoney & Anne S. Huff (1993)
The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.
There is something, however humble, which can properly be called skill among those who recognise themselves as economists.
p. 4; quoted in Andrew Mearman (2011)
The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.
Dixy Lee Ray (1990)
Canada has no cultural unity, no linguistic unity, no religious unity, no economic unity, no geographic unity. All it has is unity.