Vilfredo Pareto

"History is a graveyard of aristocracies. Those who fail to adapt inevitably perish."

"In economics, the majority of people make choices based on sentiment rather than reason."

"Power does not belong to those who deserve it, but to those who seize it."

"The masses are easily swayed by rhetoric and emotion, seldom by logic."

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and you create a competitor."

"Society evolves through the circulation of elites, not through revolution."

"Most people believe what they wish to believe, regardless of evidence."

"The path to success is paved with the bones of those too honest to compromise."

"Human nature is unchanging; only its expressions vary with time and circumstance."

"Freedom is a beautiful lie we tell ourselves to justify our constraints."

"Love is the art of making someone happy at the cost of your own sanity."

"Knowledge without application is merely decoration for the mind."

"The strong survive not because they are virtuous, but because they are stronger."

"Patience is the virtue of those too weak to act immediately."

"Beauty fades, but stupidity is forever renewable."

"Most people spend their lives climbing a ladder leaning against the wrong wall."

"Time is the only true measure of value; everything else is subjective opinion."

"Dreams are the luxury of those with nothing else to occupy their minds."

"Courage is simply fear that has been poorly calculated."

"Change is inevitable, but progress is a luxury few can afford."

"Education teaches us what to think, not how to think."

"Hope is the opium of the masses, keeping them docile and content."

"Friendship is merely a contract between two people to ignore each other's flaws."

"Family bonds are the chains we willingly wear."

"The dead teach us more than the living ever could."

"Money is the only honest measure of value in human society."

"Health is a state of being that most take for granted until it is gone."

"Adventure is what we call it when we survive our own stupidity."

"Imagination is the privilege of the young and the escape of the old."

"Science seeks truth; politics seeks power dressed as truth."