Vernon Smith

"Knowledge without application is merely entertainment."

"Time reveals whether theories hold up to scrutiny."

"Truth about markets is discovered through careful observation."

"Freedom to innovate is freedom to prosper."

"Peace is more likely in free societies than in controlled ones."

"Nature is the ultimate teacher of efficiency."

"Art and economics both seek to understand human expression."

"Science demands evidence, and evidence demands experiments."

"Music and markets both depend on individual actors creating harmony."

"Faith in markets is justified by their consistent performance."

"The market is not just an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization."

"When you have a system where decision-making is forced to the bottom, where the people who use the system everyday get to make the decisions, you get better decisions."

"Experimental economics has taught us that people are far more cooperative and far less selfish than economists gave them credit for."

"The human animal is a very strange creature. We are capable of both incredible altruism and incredible cruelty."

"Property rights are not natural rights. They are creations of civilization."

"You cannot understand how markets work unless you understand how people behave."

"Institutions matter more than we thought. They shape human behavior in fundamental ways."

"The laboratory is a tool for understanding the world, not just for confirming theories."

"People are not rational in the way that economists assume. But they are not irrational either."

"Voluntary exchange is the foundation of a free society."

"The best economic institutions are those that align individual incentives with social welfare."

"Trust is the lubricant that makes markets work."

"When people have skin in the game, they make better decisions."

"The beauty of the market is that it allows strangers to cooperate without trusting each other."

"Experiments reveal the truth about how humans actually behave, not how we think they should behave."

"Information asymmetries are at the root of many market failures."

"The efficient market hypothesis assumes people are smarter than they actually are."

"Change comes when people have the incentive and the freedom to try new things."

"History shows us that decentralized decision-making outperforms centralized planning."

"The pursuit of self-interest, when constrained by rules, produces social benefit."