Tony Judt Quotes
We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.
Judt, Tony. Ill Fares the Land. Penguin Press, 2010, p. 1.
This extreme position illustrates how a politician, trying to defend a particular position can get carried away and lose rational sense of balance. The air we breath is free and quite valuable—essential really. The exercise of most of our political rights is without charge. Legitimate religions do not require payment.
There has never yet been created a sound method of determining value of intangibles. This is what limits the value of economics to politics. Cost-benefit analyses are not very useful if there is no way to measure the benefit such as Newton’s discoveries.
Tony Robert Judt FBA was an English-American historian, essayist and university professor who specialised in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University, and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. In 1996 Judt was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.
