39 Quotes by Gunnar Myrdal

I would say that it is an advantage to belong to a small country. We are apt to be less provincial in scholarly undertakings. We don't have enough literature in various problems - we must always look on the whole world. No country can be so provincial as a big country. The United States is, in my opinion, the most provincial country I have lived in - an I'm afraid that England and France don't come very far behind.

Cultural influences have set up the assumptions about the mind, the body, and the universe with which we begin; pose the questions we ask; influence the facts we seek; determine the interpretation we give these facts; and direct our reaction to these interpretations and conclusions.

The Negro problem, like all other political problems, is fundamentally a moral issue. This is realism, not idealism. Those of my colleagues who believe that they are particularly 'hard boiled' because they overlook the fact that human beings are struggling for their consciences are simply unrealistic.

America is the one rich country with the biggest slums, the least democratic and least developed health system, and the most niggardly attitude against its old people.

Compared with members of other nations of Western civilization, the ordinary American is a rationalistic being, and there are close relations between his moralism and his rationalism. Even romanticism, transcendentalism, and mysticism tend to be, in the American culture, rational, pragmatic and optimistic.

The ordinary American is the opposite of a cynic. He is on the average more of a believer and a defender of the faith in humanity than the rest of the Occidentals. It is a relatively important matter to him to be true to his own ideals and to carry them out in actual life.

In society, liberty for one may mean the suppression of liberty for others.

In my family, we don't die till we're 100 years old.

People don't realize the great happiness there is in living to be very old and together all the time.