Richard Lamm Quotes

Economics is a choice between alternatives all the time. Those are the trade-offs.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Saying 'yes' to one thing means saying 'no' to another. That's why decisions can be hard sometimes.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

You have to make choices always. It's about the omission of something for the sake of another.

Need always plays into your decisions more as the draft unfolds.

Living is nothing more or less than doing one thing instead of another.

I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can't DO EVERYTHING I want.

In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of others.

Discrimination is simply the act of choice. Scarcity requires us to choose; scarcity is the cause of discrimination!

Strategy is choice. Strategy means saying no to certain kinds of things.

Life is like a giant smorgasbord of more delicious alternatives than you can ever hope to taste. So you have to reject having some things you want in order to get other things you want more.

As an economist, I'm aware that life is full of trade offs.

The reality is that we are all economists. We all deal with scarcity as we make choices and calculate how to ration various items and resources that we consume, produce and utilize.

Time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

In economics, one of the most important concepts is 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else.

Strategy 101 is about choices: You can't be all things to all people.

I tell my micro students everything I teach them is important, but the truth is that some things are more useful than others, and opportunity cost is near the top.

Because economics is all about optimising, doing the best you can with what you have - it's usually the first place you should look for answers if you want to maximise your happiness.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

For every path you choose, there is another you must abandon, usually forever.

Frankly, we don't have the resources to go everywhere and do everything.

The essence of government is making necessary choices between competing uses of public resources.

Sometimes you have to give up one good in order to get another good.