Attributed to Morgenstern in: John H. McArthur, Bruce R. Scott (1969), Industrial planning in France. p. 21.
“Decisions and plans made by others… [can be judged to be] quantitatively at least as important as the primary uncertainty arising from random acts of nature and unpredictable changes in consumers' preferences.”
Source: Three Essays (1957), p. 163; as cited in: Richard Langlois (1989) Economics as a Process. p. 181
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Tjalling Koopmans 16
Dutch American economist 1910–1985Related quotes

Plaid Cymru calls for regional development agencies https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-37318652 BBC News (12 September 2016)
2016

Multiple variations of this quote can be found, but the earliest one on Google Books which uses the phrase "friendly or hostile" and attributes it to Einstein is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spiritual Healing by Susan Gregg (2000), p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=XLQ8X67PozAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false, and this book gives no source for the quote.
A variant is found in Irving Oyle's The New American Medicine Show (1979) on p. 163, where Oyle writes: 'There is a story about Albert Einstein's view of human existence. Asked to pose the most vital question facing humanity, he replied, "Is the universe friendly?"' This variant is repeated in a number of books from the 1980s and 90s, so it probably pre-dates the "friendly or hostile" version. And the idea that the most important question we can ask is "Is the universe friendly?" dates back much earlier than the attribution to Einstein, for example in Emil Carl Wilm's 1912 book The Problem of Religion he includes the following footnote on p. 114 http://books.google.com/books?id=nWYiAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q&f=false: 'A friend proposed to the late F. W. H. Myers the following question: "What is the thing which above all others you would like to know? If you could ask the Sphinx one question, and only one, what would the question be?" After a moment's silence Myers replied: "I think it would be this: Is the universe friendly?"'
Misattributed

“Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”
Amys
(15 September 1992)

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Source: Principles of Economics (1998-), Ch. 2. Thinking Like an Economist; p. 27

Source: The Age of Extremes (1992), Chapter Eleven, Cultural Revolution, p.338-339
Context: The old moral vocabulary of rights and duties, mutual obligations, sin and virtue, sacrifice, conscience, rewards, and penalties, could no longer be translated into the new language of desired gratification. Once such practices and institutions were no longer accepted as part of a way of ordering society that linked people to each other and ensured social cooperation and reproduction, most of their capacity to structure human social life vanished. They were reduced simply expressions of individuals' preferences, and claims that the law should recognize the supremacy of these preferences. Uncertainty and unpredictability impended. Compass needles no longer had a North, maps became useless.