Joseph Schumpeter

"The academic who serves only abstract truth fails the larger obligation to society."

"Economic analysis without historical context is like medicine without diagnosis."

"The entrepreneur must balance vision with pragmatism or become merely a dreamer."

"The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield."

"Innovation is the outstanding feat of the entrepreneur."

"The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production."

"Capitalism is being murdered by its own offspring, the intellectuals it produced."

"The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life."

"Socialism is what socialists make of it."

"Creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism."

"The man who is primarily interested in his own well-being is in a better position to serve the well-being of others."

"Economic progress means increased efficiency of the productive process."

"The stock exchange is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail."

"Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew."

"There are countless people who can imagine the future, but very few who can create it."

"Competition is a process of creative destruction in which new commodities, new technologies, and new forms of organization constantly revolutionize economic structures."

"The entrepreneur is someone who visualizes opportunity where others see only obstacles."

"The ultimate foundation of business is public confidence."

"Rational behavior presupposes a well-integrated personality and well-integrated social institutions."

"People are naturally lazy and prefer leisure to work."

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."

"To the observer who has witnessed business cycles and the peculiarities of economic policy, the statement that capitalism means free competition seems hopelessly naive."

"What we are trying to do is to break new ground. We cannot walk in the footsteps of our predecessors; we must forge our own path."

"The entrepreneur is the dynamic force in capitalism."

"Historical facts are facts of the past; but questions about them are all questions of the present."

"The true problems of existence are always and only: How much have you sacrificed to your view of life? Or are you also among those who want to have their cake and eat it too?"

"Democracy is a system in which two wolves and one lamb vote on what to have for lunch."

"Schumpeter observed that capitalism would eventually collapse under the weight of its own intellectual contradictions."

"The entrepreneur breaks the stationary circular flow of economic life."

"Every piece of knowledge must have a philosophical interpretation."