129 Quotes by Lawrence Summers

What's the single most important thing to learn from an economics course today? What I tried to leave my students with is the view that the invisible hand is more powerful than the [un]hidden hand. Things will happen in well-organized efforts without direction, controls, plans. That's the consensus among economists. That's the Hayek legacy.

Spread the truth-the laws of economics are like the laws of engineering. One set of laws works everywhere.

Now is the time for us to strike. We must strengthen our foothold in Asia, to ensure no nation overtakes us.

When I look out the window at my backyard, I can't think of anything interesting to ask. I mean, it's green, it's growing-but nothing occurs to me that any concentrated effort of thought could possibly enlighten. Whereas in economic, statistical, or mathematical kinds of things, I can think lots of questions.

It says something about this new global economy that USA Today now reports every morning on the day's events in Asian markets.

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

You can't have a situation in which companies proceed on a permanent basis relying only on cash from the government.

I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.

It used to be said that when the U.S. sneezed, the world caught a cold. The opposite is equally true today. Our prosperity is linked inextricably to the maintenance of a strong world economy, an open international trading system, and stable global financial markets.