Bruce Schneier Quotes

It's a fundamental aspect of the free enterprise system and economics: If there's no penalty associated with increased costs, why not lay on increased costs?

We try to say it's creative and in a manner it is creative, but it is a business, because today, with the cost factor in crossing the boundaries that you do.

Economists think about what people ought to do. Psychologists watch what they actually do.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

We cannot afford no security, but we also cannot afford total security.

The dictates of economics, that "dismal science," limit the benefits of medical science

Buy cheap and sell dear.

For too long it was assumed that you could completely separate out flows of money from responsibilities and accountabilities in service delivery. This flawed assumption is central to understanding many of the failures.

A nation imports from a distance a manufactured commodity, which it is granted it could make as cheap, or cheaper, at home, were the manufacture introduced there. To introduce the manufacture is, however, too expensive a project to be carried into effect by any private individual. The whole society might do so, through the expenditure for a few years of a portion of its revenue, much less than what an equal number of years succeeding them will return to it in the diminished cost of the article.

Throwing money after security turns out to be a classic example of the law of diminishing marginal utility.

There’s a lot of money in making financial products whose risk few understand. Simplicity might be good for economics, but it’s lousy for Wall Street bonuses.

In considering economic behavior, humor is especially important for, needless to say, much of that behavior is infinitely ridiculous.

There is a cost to every decision, and whether or not you impose a public health order has costs to industry and the public.

Let’s throw the economists out and use common sense instead.

We saw firsthand how a collapsed bridge in Skagit County impacted our local economy, which is why we must fix our infrastructure now before it's more expensive to maintain in the future.

The barriers that renewables and efficiency face come less from our living in a capitalist market economy and more from not taking market economics seriously.

If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked. What's more, you deserve to be hacked.

If testing costs more than not testing, then don't test.

If security were all that mattered, computers would never be turned on, let alone hooked into a network with literally millions of potential intruders.

Understanding economics can help you make better decisions and lead a happier life.

I've argued with the senators and congressmen I've talked to. You don't want to be too little too late. If you buy them at the right price, you may be buying two trillion of face value.

So people have to decide. Do they want to have the security? Do they want to continue to plug the gap [in border security] that GAO has identified and recognize that there will be some costs to doing that? Or do we want to make sure that business isn't hampered and that people can move back and forth readily, and recognize that, if we don't put some barriers in place, we're going to wind up with dangerous people coming into the country?

Worrying about a large institution, especially when it has computers, is like worrying about a large gorilla, especially when it's on fire.

Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by pure stupidity - or, rather, inattention, misinformation about fundamentals, and an exaggerated focus on currently circulating stories.