Joseph Schumpeter quotes - page 2

Success depends on intuition, on seeing what afterwards proves true but cannot be established at the moment. (Joseph Schumpeter)
Profit is the payment you get when you take advantage of change. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
As a matter of fact, capitalist economy is not and cannot be stationary. Nor is it merely expanding in a steady manner. It is incessantly being revolutionized from within by new enterprise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure as it exists at any moment. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes primitive again. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
Innovations are changes which cannot be decomposed into infinitessimal steps. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
Situations emerge in the process of creative destruction in which many firms may have to perish that nevertheless would be able to live on vigorously and usefully if they could weather a particular storm. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can't bother about where they're going. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
Nothing is so treacherous as the obvious. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably also means production for the masses. . . . It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
I set out to become the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. Alas, for the illusions of youth: as a horseman, I was never really first-rate. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The success of everything depends on intuition, the capacity of seeing things in a way which afterwards proves to be true, even though it cannot be established at the moment, and of grasping the essential fact, discarding the unessential, even though one can give no account of the principles by which this is done. (Joseph Schumpeter)
There exists no more democratic institution than the market. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
We always plan too much and always think too little. We resent a call to thinking and hate unfamiliar argument that does not tally with what we already believe or would like to believe. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why a man may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
Pessimistic visions about almost anything always strike the public as more erudite than optimistic ones. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The religious quality of Marxism also explains a characteristic attitude of the orthodox Marxist toward opponents. To him, as to any believer in a Faith, the opponent is not merely in error but in sin. Dissent is disapproved of not only intellectually but also morally. There cannot be any excuse for it once the Message has been revealed. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
I know that it is not enough to be remembered for books and theories. One does not make a difference unless it is a difference in people's lives. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare-all this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases. He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
To realize the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
In one important sense, Marxism is a religion. To the believer it presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends which implies a plan of salvation and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. (Joseph Schumpeter)
The intellectual and social climate needed to allow entrepreneurship to thrive will not exist in advanced capitalism. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
It is not true that democracy will always safeguard freedom of conscience better than autocracy. Witness the most famous of all trials. Pilate was, from the standpoint of the Jews, certainly the representative of autocracy. Yet he tried to protect freedom. And he yielded to a democracy. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The modern mind dislikes gold because it blurts out unpleasant truths. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter
The capitalist process shapes things and souls for socialism. View quote
Joseph Schumpeter