Quotes from Joseph A. 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.

The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

We fight for and against not men and things as they are, but for and against the caricatures we make of them.

But in capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not that kind of competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization (the largest-scale unit of control for instance)—competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.

The way in which we see things can hardly be distinguished from the way in which we wish to see them.

Analysis, whether economic or other, never yields more than a statement about the tendencies present in an observable pattern. And these never tell us what will happen to the pattern but only what would happen if they continued to act as they have been acting in the time interval covered by our observation and if no other factors intruded. "Inevitability" or "necessity" can never mean more than this.

To realize the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.

To the believer Marxism presents, first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute standards by which to judge events and actions.

It is, after all, only common sense to realize that, but for the fact that economic life is a process of incessant internal change, the business cycle, as we know it, would not exist.

The evolution of the capitalist style of life could be easily - and perhaps most tellingly - described in terms of the genesis of the modern Lounge Suit.

Marxism is essentially a product of the bourgeois mind.

Entrepreneurial profit is the expression of the value of what the entrepreneur contributes to production.

Success depends on intuition, on seeing what afterwards proves true but cannot be established at the moment.

In economic life competition is never completely lacking, but hardly ever is it perfect.

For the duration of its collective life, or the time during which its identity may be assumed, each class resembles a hotel or an omnibus, always full, but always of different people.

Our poverty will be brought home to us to its full extent only after the war.

Economic progress, in capitalist society, means turmoil.

Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself.

Our poverty will be brought home to us to its full extent only after the war.

Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.

Why should we stunt our ambitions and impoverish our lives in order to be insulted and looked down upon in our old age?

The ballot is stronger than bullets.

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.

We always plan too much and always think too little.