xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“Or rather, I inherited the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and damned by it, as they say at the race track — damned in more ways than one.”

Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape

Mildred: Scene 2
The Hairy Ape (1922)

“I haven't touched a piano in so many years. I couldn't play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home — [She stares at her hands with fascinated disgust. ] See, Cathleen, how ugly they are! So maimed and crippled! You would think they'd been through some horrible accident! [She gives a strange little laugh. ] So they have, come to think of it. [She suddenly thrusts her hands behind her back. ] I won't look at them. They're worse than the foghorn for reminding me — [Then with defiant self-assurance. ] But even they can't touch me now. [She brings her hands from behind her back and deliberately stares at them — calmly. ] They're far away. I see them, but the pain has gone.”

Eugene O'Neill Long Day's Journey into Night

Page 106 (Act 3)
Long Day's Journey into Night (1955)

“Man's loneliness is but his fear of life.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

“Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

“There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.”

Eugene O'Neill A Moon for the Misbegotten

Source: A Moon for the Misbegotten

“What is missing from the policy analyst's tool kit - and from the set of accepted, well-developed theories of human organization - is an adequately specified theory of collective action whereby a group of principals can organize themselves voluntarily to retain the residuals of their own efforts.”

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) American political economist

Elinor Ostrom (1996) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action p. 25-26

“I would like to focus your attention not on the subject of the article (national security in a nuclear world) but on the kind of conclusion they reached, namely that there is no technical solution to the problem. An implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in professional and semipopular scientific journals is that the problem under discussion has a technical solution. A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.”

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) American political economist

Hardin (1968) "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science.

“We should continue to use simple models where they capture enough of the core underlying structure and incentives that they usefully predict outcomes. When the world we are trying to explain and improve, however, is not well described by a simple model, we must continue to improve our frameworks and theories so as to be able to understand complexity and not simply reject it.”

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) American political economist

Elinor Ostrom (2009) "Nobel Prize Lecture", December 8.

“Humans have a more complex motivational structure and more capability to solve social dilemmas than posited in earlier rational-choice theory. Designing institutions to force (or nudge) entirely self-interested individuals to achieve better outcomes has been the major goal posited by policy analysts for governments to accomplish for much of the past half century. Extensive empirical research leads me to argue that instead, a core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans.”

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) American political economist

Elinor Ostrom (2009) "Nobel Prize Lecture", December 8.

“No authors propounded the ideas of economic liberalism in Sweden during the 1920s as vigorously as did Cassel and Heckscher, and in addition they certainly helped in no mean degree to give actual policy a liberal stamp during that decade.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Bertil Ohlin (1977, p. 15), as cited in: Benny Carlson. The state as a monster: Gustav Cassel and Eli Heckscher on the role and growth of the state. University Press of America, 1994. p. 3.
1970s

“I started [in 1921] to write on the foundations of an approach to international trade theory that was to some extent new and for which I received the inspiration during a stroll on [the popular promenade] Unter den Linden in Berlin in 1920.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin in his memoirs, as cited in: Flam, Harry, and M. June. " The Young Ohlin on the Theory of Interregional and International Trade http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:328550/FULLTEXT01.pdf." Bertil Ohlin: A Centennial Celebration, 1899-1999 10 (2002): p. 175. <br class="br">1970s

“International trade theory has, in my opinion, given far too much attention to the effects of certain variations, for example, in duties, on the national incomes, and too little to the effects on individual incomes. In many cases, changes in the sums count for very little, while changes in the individual incomes are distinctly relevant.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Source: Interregional and international trade. (1933), p. 306 ; As cited in: Irwin, Douglas A. "Ohlin Versus Stolper-Samuelson." No. w7641. National bureau of economic research, 2000. p. 3.

“Curiously enough, John Stuart Mill, although he must have been familiar with Longfield's writings, seems never to have touched upon this line of reasoning.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Source: Interregional and international trade. (1933), p. 32; As cited in: Andrea Maneschi (1998) Comparative Advantage in International Trade: A Historical Perspective p. 124.

“The economic history of the last half century offers two cases of serious international depressions in countries with an essential orientation towards a market economy: In the first half of the 1930ies and in the middle of the 1970ies. With some simplification one can say that in the former case recovery started after a few years without the aid of much conscious expansionist policy.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin, Bertil. " 1933 and 1977: Some Expansion Policy Problems in Cases of Unbalanced Domestic and International Economic Relations http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1977/ohlin-lecture.pdf." Nobel Memorial Lecture, December 8, 1977; Published in: The Scandinavian Journal of Economics (1978): 360-374. <br class="br">1970s

“To me it is a riddle that Knut Wicksell, who for most of his life was a fanatical representative of extreme opinions in the social debate, could present a completely different personality in the scholarly context. During the period when I knew him he was the diffident seeker after scientific truth.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Bertil Ohlin (1972, 558), as cited in: Carlson, Benny, and Lars Jonung. "Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal on the role of the economist in public debate." Econ Journal Watch 3.3 (2006): 511-550.
1920s

“The origin of this research was an attempt to extend Cassel’s system of equations of price determination in one market to that of several trading countries. Although the point of departure is totally different, the results of that attempt (presented in chapter III) exhibit important similarities to Heckscher’s treatment in ‘‘The Effect of Foreign Trade on the Distribution of Income,’’ published one year earlier in Ekonomisk Tidskrift, 1920. There is no doubt that the author was unconsciously inﬂuenced by Heckscher’s paper both at this and at later stages of the work. The inﬂuence of this pathbreaking paper, both conscious and unconscious, has surely been particularly decisive in the development of the material in chapters I–III.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin (1924), quoted (and translated) in: Eli Filip Heckscher, ‎Bertil Gotthard Ohlin, ‎Henry Flam Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory, (1991), p. 76.
1920s

“It seems beyond doubt that the tariff policy pursued during the last half century has not raised the standard of living of the labouring classes. It is doubtful if agricultural duties increase the relative scarcity of manual labour compared with other factors, and they certainly raise the cost of living for the working classes. It is, however, true that manufacturing duties tend to depress the rent of farm land… It is on the whole not at all unlikely that the sum total of rent is reduced in countries with high manufacturing duties… In most countries, however, the sum of rents is small compared with the sum of wages to manual workers. Even a substantial reduction of the former brings only a slight increase in the latter.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Source: Interregional and international trade. (1933), p. 307; As cited in: Irwin, Douglas A. "Ohlin Versus Stolper-Samuelson." No. w7641. National bureau of economic research, 2000. p. 4.

“The productive factors enter into the production of different commodities in very different proportions.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Source: Interregional and international trade. (1933), p. 30.

“I am presently at work on a dissertation dealing with the theory of international trade and foreign exchange rates. In dealing with this, studies of the intervention of recent years in the area of trade and exchange rates of different countries is of the greatest importance. I therefore hope to be able to begin a six month study tour to Switzerland, France and England at the end of May this year. After having collected the necessary material I intend — if the economic side can be arranged — during a stay of 6–12 months in England (probably Cambridge) or possibly the United States (in that case probably Harvard University) — to work out the above mentioned dissertation as a specimen for the doctoral degree in philosophy and pursue studies in general. I have not yet any detailed study plan. That should appropriately be set up after the arrival.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin’s application to the Royal Academy of Sciences, January 30, 1922; Translation by Rolf G. H. Henriksson in "Eureka unter den Linden" in: Bertil Ohlin: A Centennial Celebration, 1899-1999, p. 129.
1920s

“Nutrition seems to mock the achievements of economic development”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin (1977, p. 201); as cited in: Larry Lev (1981) The effect of cash cropping on food consumption adequacy among the Meru of northern Tanzania. p. 1.
1970s