A Quote by Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Economics is not an attempt to generalize human desires or human behavior; but to generalize the phenomena of price.

Michael Joseph Oakeshott

Quote Topics

Attempt Behavior Desires Economics Generalize Human Human Behavior Phenomena Price

Quote Author

Michael Joseph Oakeshott
English - Philosopher
December 11, 1901 - December 19, 1990

Art arises in those strange complexities of action that are called human beings. It is a kind of human behavior. As such it is not magic, except as human beings are magical. Nor is it concerned in absolutes, eternities, "forms," beyond those that may reside in the context of the human being and be subject to his vicissitudes. Art is not an inner state of consciousness, whatever that may mean. Neither is it essentially a supreme form of communication. Art is human behavior, and its values are contained in human behavior.

Baker Brownell

Economics has increasingly become the science of human behavior in general, and it's all the more unlikely to think that it can possibly be value-free - and, in fact, it isn't. Economics rests on un-argued assumptions that need to be examined.

Michael Sandel

Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.

Stephen Jay Gould

War had always seemed to me to be a purely human behavior. Accounts of warlike behavior date back to the very first written records of human history; it seemed to be an almost universal characteristic of human groups.

Jane Goodall

If you don't generalize you don't philosophize.

Robert M. Pirsig

To generalize is to be an idiot.

William Blake

Religion is an attempt, a noble attempt, to suggest in human terms more-than-human realities.

Christopher Morley

Today this is what we are confronted with, I mean what is pure ideology, which takes no account of the human context. In economics it's the same. Economics wanted to take into account theory over and above human criteria, or the parameter 'man'.

Catherine Camus

Life is too short so we must generalize.

Gordon Allport

One thing bothered me as a student. In the 1960s, human behavior was totally off limits for the biologist. There was animal behavior, then there was a long time nothing, after which came human behavior as a totally separate category best left to a different group of scientists.

Frans de Waal

If we studied human beings which can include human genes, human blood samples, and human behavior, then you can leave the animals out of the labs and you can leave them off your plate.

Neal Barnard

Interestingly, human irrationality is a hot topic in economics at the moment. Behavioural economics it's called, on the cusp of economics and psychology.

Evan Davis

People generalize music by how you look, and I don't like that.

Kerli

I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care.

Dave Barry

We've got to temper anything we say with that. On the other hand, you've got to be serious about what you do. And you've got to understand the price you pay for frivolity or just for greed - it's a very high price, especially if you're involved in this sacred material, which is about the human heart and human desire and human tragedy.