Bryan Caplan Quotes

#1. I've just had an operation, but nothing too serious.

Syd Barrett

#2. The use of force is easy to rationalize in terms of basic economics. 'We should make them PAY for what they've done!' It's just the law of demand: raise the price of crossing us, and fewer people will cross us. Make the price another Hiroshima, and perhaps the quantity demanded will fall to zero.

Bryan Caplan

#3. Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

Andre Maurois

#4. Both bad driving and bad voting are dangerous not merely to the individual who practices them, but to innocent bystanders.

Bryan Caplan

#5. I don't feel bound by the ebbs and flows of musical trends, or what's happening with new music in general.

Kevin Shields

#6. Remarkably, until the passage of the Representation of the People Act of 1949, Britain retained plural voting for graduates of elite universities and business owners.

Bryan Caplan

#7. Only allow yourself to think negative thoughts and/or complain about anything for three minutes, three times a day.

Karen Salmansohn

#8. Each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity.

Johann Gottfried Herder

#9. Sociotropic voters with biased economic beliefs are more likely to produce severe political failures than are selfish voters with rational expectations.

Bryan Caplan

#10. The best social insurance is to make more progress, not to make more work

Bryan Caplan

#11. The serious fact is that the bulk of the really important things economics has to teach are things that people would see for themselves if they were willing to see. - Frank Knight, "The Role of Principles in Economics and Politics

Bryan Caplan

#12. If you can't feel secure - and teach your children to feel secure - about
1-in-610,000 nightmare scenarios - the problem isn't the world. It's you.

Bryan Caplan

#13. With a goose-quill and a few sheets of paper, I mock myself of the universe. They say I am the son of a courtesan; it may be so, but I have the heart of a King. I live free, I enjoy myself, I can call myself happy.

Pietro Aretino

#14. The purer I try to become, the nearer I feel to be to God.

Mahatma Gandhi

#15. In a modern democracy, not only can a libertarian be elitist; a libertarian has to be elitist. To be a libertarian in a modern democracy is to say that nearly 300 million Americans are wrong, and a handful of nay-sayers are right.

Bryan Caplan

#16. Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.

Louisa May Alcott

#17. Good intentions are ubiquitous in politics; what is scarce is accurate beliefs.

Bryan Caplan

#18. Let us designate anarchism1 anarchism as you define it. Let us desiginate anarchism2 anarchism as I and the American Heritage College Dictionary define it.

Bryan Caplan

#19. Do you know what I dream about? My dream would be to die looking at the lights on the Ferris wheel. When I get old, when my body has given up, that's what I want to see. And in that dream, you're standing next to me.

Jane Harvey-Berrick

#20. In daily life, reality gives us material incentives to restrain our irrationality. But what incentive do we have to think rationally about politics?

Bryan Caplan

#21. I need a sign to let me know you're here. All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere. I need to know that things are
gonna look up ... I'm calling all you Angels ... I won't give up if you don't give up.

Train

#22. [T]he superstitions to be feared in the present day are much less religious than political; and of all the forms of idolatry I know none more irrational and ignoble than this blind worship of mere numbers. - William Lecky, Democracy and Liberty

Bryan Caplan

#23. Suffering does not call into question the "big picture" of the Christian faith. It reminds us that we do not see the whole picture, and are thus unable to fit all of the pieces neatly into place.

Alister E. McGrath

#24. We are all important parts of a much larger system, pieces of the universe's puzzle that would not be complete without us.

Russell Eric Dobda

#25. There are two sources of error: Either you lack sufficient data, or you fail to take advantage of the data that you have.

Bryan Caplan

#26. Worldviews are more a mental security blanket than a serious effort to understand the world

Bryan Caplan

#27. Cats are the wildest of the tame and the tamest of the wild

Mark Twain

#28. Narcissists are neither carefree nor innocent. They have learned to play the power game, to seduce and to manipulate. They are always thinking about how people see and respond to them. And they must stay in control because loss of control evokes their fear of insanity.

Alexander Lowen

#29. What happens if fully rational politicians compete for the support of irrational voters - specifically, voters with irrational beliefs about the effects of various policies? It is a recipe for mendacity.

Bryan Caplan

#30. When it comes to soul, Dennis Marcellino redefines the term. His remarkable tone and feel are full of passion and soulful expression.

Bob Carlisle