33 Quotes by Russ Roberts

The Universe is full of dots. Connect the right ones and you can draw anything. The important question is not whether the dots you picked are really there, but why you chose to ignore all the others.

Love locally, trade globally.

Life’s not a race. It’s a journey to savor and enjoy. Ambition – the relentless desire for more – can eat you up.

Economics helps you understand that money isn’t the only thing that matters in life. Economics teaches you that making a choice means giving up something. And economics can help you appreciate complexity and how seemingly unrelated actions and people can become entangled.

Capitalism involves struggle, but it has an invisible heart beating at its core that transforms people’s lives.

When we honor bad people or avoid good people, we are playing a role in degrading the world around us. It’s a small role, almost negligible. But together, our combined actions are decisive. Each step we take away from loveliness is a step away from civilization. As more and more of us take those steps, our seemingly negligible actions are no longer negligible.

One important characteristic of civilization is trust. When you can trust the people you deal with – when you don’t have to fear that your trust will be exploited for someone else’s gain – life is lovelier and economic life is much easier. How does trust get created? By the myriad small interactions we have with each other when we honor our word and pass up the chance for opportunism.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.

The idea that other people care about themselves is generally a good thing to remember if you want them to do something for you in return.