Trade Offs Quotes

There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.

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.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

Even an ideal set of trade-offs must—and should—leave a whole spectrum of unmet needs, because the cost of wiping out the last vestige of any problem is leaving other problems in more dire condition. In short, trade-offs must be incremental rather than categorical, if limited resources are to produce optimal results in any social system as a whole.

All advantages are attended with disadvantages.

The question for the anointed is not knowledge but compassion, commitment, and other such subjective factors which supposedly differentiate themselves from other people. The refrain of the anointed is we already know the answers, there’s no need for more studies, and the kinds of questions raised by those with other views are just stalling and obstructing progress. “Solutions” are out there waiting to be found, like eggs at an Easter egg hunt. Intractable problems with painful trade-offs are simply not part of the vision of the anointed. Problems exists only because other people are not as wise or as caring, or not as imaginative and bold, as the anointed.

I wanted to be a 150% entrepreneur and a 150% mom, and I found that I was having a very hard time doing both. I was about 75% and 75% - still better than 100%, but not what I was accustomed to at work.

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.

More often there's a compromise between ethics and expediency.

I'd love to have done more film, but you can't have everything.

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.

Most economic fallacies derive … from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things.

'There are no easy pickings.' That would be a more accurate, less dramatic statement than 'There's no such thing as a free lunch.'

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

Countries are very reluctant to impose short term pain for long term gain.

The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance.

You can't do everything. You can't do health and forestry and agriculture. You've got to focus and do one or the other.

Everybody trades off in some sense or another.

CEOs make hard decisions; sometimes, the least worst is the right one.

You can have it all, but you can't do it all.

Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.

Free lunches don't come cheap.

Would you rather have cheap, subsidized - illegally subsidized - goods dumped into the Wal-Mart and not have a job and not have your wages go up in 15 years, or would you like to pay a little bit more - not much - a little bit more, have a job, and have your wages going up? I think the American people are going to make that choice.

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything.