Maybe we expect too much from democracy. The economist Joseph Schumpet — Joseph Schumpeter

"The innovation is hazardous, impossible for most producers. But if someone establishes a business having regard to this source of supply, and everything goes well, then he can produce a unit of product more cheaply, while at first the existing prices substantially continue to exist. He then makes a profit. Again he has contributed nothing but will and action, has done nothing but recombine existing factors. Again he is an entrepreneur, his profit entrepreneurial profit. And again the latter, and also the entrepreneurial function as such, perish in the vortex of the competition which streams after them. The case of the choice of new trade routes belongs here."

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie."

"The aristocratic and the modern were inextricably combined in Joseph Schumpeter. The paradoxes of this great economist, who also served as minister of finance in the post- World War I government of Austria, are suggested by the fact that at his first teaching post, he challenged the university librarian to a duel to win freer access to books for the students. Perhaps Schumpeter was attracted to the big issues because he himself witnessed drastic changes in society."

"Gentlemen, you are worried about the depression[sic]. You should not be. For capitalism, a depression is a good, cold douche."

"Why do entrepreneurs appear, not continuously, that is singly in every appropriately chosen interval, but in clusters? Exclusively because the appearance of one or a few entrepreneurs facilitates the appearance of others, and these the appearance of more, in ever-increasing numbers."

"This civilization is rapidly passing away, however. Let us rejoice or else lament the fact as much as everyone of us likes; but do not let us shut our eyes to it."