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Robert Heilbroner Quotes

1919–2005 United States

Robert Heilbroner (March 24, 1919 – January 4, 2005) was an American economist and historian of economic thought.

United States
Economists
Historians

Also known as: Robert L.Heilbroner

Random Robert Heilbroner quote

40 quotes

He who enlists a man's mind wields a power even greater than the sword or the scepter.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

It is from the scope and wisdom of the economists of the past that we must reap the knowledge with which to face the future.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

If an economy in the doldrums could drift indefinitely, the price of government inaction might be graver by far than the consequences of bold unorthodoxy.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The secret to economic growth lay in the fact that that each generation attacked Nature not only with its own energies and resources, but with the heritage of equipment accumulated by its forebears.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The profit motive, we are constantly being told, is as old as man himself.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The worst that Marx had claimed was that the system would destroy itself; what Hobson suggested was that it might destroy the world.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The basic function of the military — to achieve victory over the enemy — has been rendered obsolete by the fact that "victory" and defeat are almost certain to be achieved simultaneously.

The Future As History (1960)

Unlike modern man, who dreams of the world he will make, pre-modern man dreamed of the world he left.

The Future As History (1960)

Nobody wanted this commercialization of life.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

Economic freedom is a highly desirable state — but in bust and boom we must be prepared to face the its consequences.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

But like Marx, Veblen badly underestimated the capacity of a democratic system to correct its own excesses.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The Wealth of Nations may not be an original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

History, as it comes into our daily lives, is charged with surprise and shock.

The Future As History (1960)

The total amount of electric power generated by India would not suffice to light up New York City.

The Future As History (1960)

No more profound moral indictment of capitalism had ever been posed.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

In the end the question is: Who is to be master, man or his machines? As long as the control over technology rests primarily on economic calculation, the victor is not likely to be man.

The Future As History (1960)

But while Ricardo, the economist, walked like a god (although he was a modest and retiring person), Malthus was relegated to a lower status.

The Worldly Philosophers (1953)

Today and over the foreseeable future,traditional capitalism throughout most of the world has been thrown on a defensive from which it is doubtful that it can never recover.

The Future As History (1960)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Heilbroner (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.