As economists have long noted, the puzzle is not that so few people vote, it's that so many do. After all, no individual's vote has ever tipped the balance in a presidential election.

The most glaring deficiency in traditional economic models is that they completely ignore the role of context in evaluation.

Life is graded on the curve. It's not how big you are, how strong you are, how smart you are. It's how good you are at the things that count relative to the people around you.

No society has ever succeeded without a decent government.

If government is inevitable, the challenge is to come up with the most effective one possible.

Pass down values every day through your actions, your words and your time with your kids.

If the search is for examples that contradict the predictions of standard economic models, a good rule of thumb is to start in France.

In short both the things we feel we need and the things available for us to buy depend largely—beyond some point, almost entirely—on the things that others choose to buy.

The most common mistake we make as teachers is attempting to tell our students too much.

When people bump up against one another in the course of pursuing their goals, it is in everyone's interest to resolve any resulting problems in the least costly ways possible.

The link between rational individual behavior and collectively desirable outcomes is extremely tenuous.

You attract what you think of.

Belief... was its own magic-so long as it was carefully placed, often examined, like a bridge kept in careful repair.

Big surprise, I put you to sleep. Don’t feel bad. It happens all the time.

The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.

I don't think people are fools, and I think they deserve a good attitude and smart entertainment.

Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it.

The stomach is the teacher of the arts and the dispenser of invention.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me.

Doing the best you are capable of doing is victory in itself, and less than that is defeat.

Since we ate taking orders, get me some sunchips!