Economic Virtue Quotes

In this country, most people feel that being successful in their business is a virtue, not a vice, and once we begin to identify it as a vice, this country is going down.

Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

Soaking the rich would not only be profoundly immoral, it would drastically penalize the very virtues: thrift, business foresight, and investment, that have brought about our remarkable standard of living. It would truly be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I also want to raise the possibility that there are, in the very long term, "virtue effects" in economics- for instance that widespread corrupt accounting will eventually create bad long term consequences as a sort of obverse effect from the virtue-based boost double-entry book-keeping gave to the heyday of Venice. I suggest that when the financial scene starts reminding you of Sodomand Gomorrah, you should fear practical consequences even if you like to participate in what is going on.

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

The plodding thrift and scrupulous integrity and long-winded patient industry of our business men of the last century are out of fashion in these "giddy-paced" times, and England is forgetting that those who make haste to be rich can hardly avoid much temptation and some sin.

With respect to the first of these obstacles, it has often been made a matter of grave complaint against Political Economists, that they confine their attention to Wealth, and disregard all consideration of Happiness or Virtue.

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection.

My hope is that people begin to understand what the fiscal realities are - how economic virtue differs from political virtue - and develop a realization of their individual economic philosophy in comparison to their perceived political ideology.

Coolidge thought budgets were virtuous. He had his econ straight. He didn't just cut taxes, he also cut the budget.