90 Quotes by Joseph A. Schumpeter

The evolution of the capitalist style of life could be easily – and perhaps most tellingly – described in terms of the genesis of the modern Lounge Suit.

To realize the relative validity of one’s convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.

I know that it is not enough to be remembered for books and theories. One does not make a difference unless it is a difference in people’s lives.

Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political – legislative and administrative – decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself.

History is a record of “effects” the vast majority of which nobody intended to produce.

It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why a man may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense...

Nothing is so retentive as a nation’s memory.

The essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process.

For one thing, to predict the advent of big business was considering the conditions of Marx’s day an achievement in itself.