Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Federico Damaso Paretowas an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth15 July 1848
CountryItaly
bursting error fruitful full sterile time truth
Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.
bursting fruitful full
Give me a fruitful error anytime, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections.
wish chemistry physics
My wish is to construct a system of sociology on the model of celestial mechanics, physics, and chemistry.
progressive-taxation pay imagine
The liberals who demanded equality of taxation on behalf of the poor, for instance, did not imagine that they would obtain progressive taxation to the disadvantage of the well-off, and that they would end up with an arrangement in which taxes are voted by those who do not pay them.
luxury america united-states
Among civilized peoples, especially the very wealthy population of the United States of America, women have become objects of luxury who consume but do not produce.
knowing victory battle
Assume that the new elite were clearly and simply to proclaim its intentions which are to supplant the old elite; no one would come to its assistance, it would be defeated before having fought a battle. On the contrary, it appears to be asking nothing for itself, well knowing that without asking anything in advance it will obtain what it wants as a consequence of its victory.
play people roles
Usually, so far as improvement in the people's economic conditions is concerned, humanitarians simply play the role of the busybody.
law limits being-true
Empirical laws [...] have only slight or even no value beyond the limits within which they have been observed to be true.
democracy able birth
Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.
party liberty economics
The party that called itself liberal aimed at respecting the liberty to dispose of one's own goods
children bird sincere
The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to the bird.
eye men intellectual
Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints.