Thomas Sowell Quotes

In many ways, love seems to be totally divorced from economics. But then you realize - well, the stakes are high. This is something that matters to us. We're dealing with scarcity. I mean, if you're dating one person, at the very least, you don't have as much time to date another person. And you may well find that you can only date one person at a time.

Everything we do in public policy prevents us from doing something else. To govern is to choose.

The most fundamental constraint is limited time

We must explain the truth: There is no free lunch.

As an economist, I'm aware that life is full of trade offs.

Time is the least thing we have of.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

The reality is that we are all economists. We all deal with scarcity as we make choices and calculate how to ration various items and resources that we consume, produce and utilize.

In economics, one of the most important concepts is 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else.

Since scarcity is the basic economic problem, if it does not exist then there is no reason for my economics course. Devoting time to the study of how people use limited resources to fulfill unlimited wants and needs should help us to discover how to best utilize the resources we have at our disposal.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

Because economics is all about optimising, doing the best you can with what you have - it's usually the first place you should look for answers if you want to maximise your happiness.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Most economic fallacies derive … from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

Frankly, we don't have the resources to go everywhere and do everything.

The fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited

Economics is a choice between alternatives all the time. Those are the trade-offs.

Time is our ultimate scarcity. Isaac Newton can give us more electricity, but he can't give us more than 24 hours of the day of time. And so we're constantly having to sacrifice alternate activities to get the one that pleases us most.

There's a harsh reality to situations where demand outstrips supply.

My biggest regret is that there are only 24 hours in a day. I wish there was at least a few more hours. Each hour of me being awake means I can help a few more migrants who are stranded and are desperate to reach home.

Our thinking has always been in trying to grab the limited amount of spare time people have and always try to offer some unprecedented attraction to the consumer.

Unfortunately, life unfolds as it does, and you can't do everything at the same time, and you can't do some things if you can't spend the time.

Need always plays into your decisions more as the draft unfolds.

I don't know what exactly the translation is but when we do consume something now, something else has to give at some point.