"In
science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by
everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
exact opposite."
-- Paul Dirac
"Letting a hundred flowers blossom
and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the
progress of the arts and the sciences."
-- Mao Tse-Tung, 1957
"A poem is never finished, only
abandoned." -- Paul Valery, on working paper series
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy." -- Goethe,
on writing introductions to papers
"From the moment I picked your book
up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend
reading it." -- Groucho Marx, on being a journal editor
"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most
of the time he will pick himself up and continue on."
-- Sir Winston Churchill, on the scientific method
"The average man's opinions are much less foolish than
they would be if he thought for himself."
-- Bertrand Russell, on informational herding
"Anyone who considers arithmetical
methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." --
John von Neumann
"That's trivial, you know. That's just a fixed point theorem."
-- John von Neumann, on PhD-thesis advising
(told to Nash, after being explained
his new equilibrium concept; see Sylvia Nasar's book)
"Nobody goes there anymore; it's
too crowded." -- Yogi Berra, on externalities
"People who work sitting down get paid more than people
who work standing up."
-- Ogden Nash, on labour economics
"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend
upon the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw, on political economy
"Give me better wood, and I'll build you a better cabinet."
-- Sir John A. Macdonald (first Prime Minister
of Canada), on organization theory
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds
up to real money."
-- Senator Everett Dirksen, on public finance
"Young men should prove theorems,
old men should write books."
-- G.H. Hardy, in A Mathematician's Apology,
on Pareto optimality
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise
to deceive!"
-- Sir Walter Scott, on mechanism design
"Life is what happens when
you are busy making other plans."
-- John Lennon, on decision theory
I beseech you, in the bowels of
Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken
-- Oliver Cromwell, on zero chance events
[spoken in 1650 to the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland]
"I have never let my schooling interfere
with my education."
-- Mark Twain, on labour economics [more recently,
Max Amarante]
"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind." -- Aristotle,
on labour economics
"Wit is educated insolence." -- Aristotle, on his days
at the Academy
"University politics are vicious precisely because the
stakes are so small."
-- Henry Kissinger, on junior hiring
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
-- Gore Vidal, on psychology
"Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything
you want to do."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, on class scheduling
"Are they as successful as who, Microsoft? Only drug lords
from South America are as successful as Microsoft."
-- stolen, on network versus traditional monopoly
theory
" We have slain a large dragon, but we now live in a jungle
filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes."
-- James Woolsey (1993), former CIA director,
on the winner's curse
(Prisoner) "What do you want?"
( #2) "Information."
(P) "Whose side are you on?"
(#2) "That would be telling. We want information
... information...information..."
-- The Prisoner (1967 Sci-Fi TV series),
on setting exams