Economics in college was very poor I was not very impressed with it. I actually wanted to study statistics. I discovered mathematical statistics as an undergraduate and was fascinated with it.

I think that systems that are based on employment are illogical and attempts to meet them create all sorts of unnecessary complexities.

Venture capital has done much more, I think, to improve efficiency than anything.

My graduate study was interrupted, like that of many others, by World War II.

From the time I first understood economic principles, I was always concerned also that any system be operated on an efficient basis, which meant decentralization because knowledge is not concentrated anywhere. It's based on motivation, and so these are the advantages of, say, the cautious case for capitalism, that the market system is efficient.

I am not really inclined to think there is any very effective regulation of the derivative securities markets that would be useful. People who go into it essentially ought to know what risks they're taking and I don't see any useful regulation.

The intrinsic social structure, the family structure and so forth, is certainly in a very bad state. And I think that this is showing up in productivity. I think part of the reason, and I can't prove this, we're seeing a decline in some places is the breakup of the family, which is partly the result of an extreme form of individualism.

Vast ills have followed a belief in certainty.

I think one of the things we learned from the physicists and also the theoretical biologists is the idea that when you're dealing with very complex systems you're going to get a large variety of behavior which can be interpreted as hill climbing, but hill climbing with a lot of modifications, hill climbing with big jumps occasionally.

We have to be more modest in what we claim.

The MD is well aware that the forecasts are no good but he needs them for planning purposes.

Unsolved problems, that's one of the great signs of progress in my opinion.

I don't believe that unemployment is all voluntary, by anticipation of future wage movements or this sort of thing. I know you can modify the models by taking into account the indivisibilities, but I don't really think that people are voluntarily unemployed.

The world is changing. We're not really proceeding on a stationary basis.

I think the idea that a society has to be responsible for all of its citizens, those who do well and those who do not, is really a precondition of a good society.

Knowledge is a free good. The biggest cost in its transmission is not in the production or distribution of knowledge, but in its assimilation. This is something that all teachers know.

Usefulness depends on tractability.