Economists are surgeons who have an excellent scalpel but a jagged lancet — they operate exquisitely on the dead but torture the living.
[Les économistes sont des chirugiens qui on un excellent scalpel et un bistouri ébréché, opérant à merveille sur le mort et martyrisant le vif.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 7, ¶ 457 (1795) [tr. Dusinberre (1992)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
Political Economists are surgeons with excellent scalpels and blunted bistouries; they work on the dead to a marvel and torture the living.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]
An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]
Economists are surgeons who wield an excellent scalpel and a chipped bistoury, and operate wonderfully on the dead flesh and agonize the living.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]
Economists are surgeons who have an excellent scalpel and chipped scissors, who operate marvelously on the dead and who make martyrs of the living.
[tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]
Quotations about:
economist
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An economist is a man that can tell you anything about — he’ll tell you what can happen under any given conditions, and his guess is liable to be just as good as anybody else’s, too.
Everybody thought, “this time is different.” In my view, those are the most frightening words in the English language. If you look at the crises that have infected the world, the term, “this time, it’s different” has almost always been the hubris that comes before nemesis.
Andrew Crockett (1943-2012) British banker, economist, author, public servant
Speech, Pomona College, Claremont, Calif. (Apr 2009)
(Source)
Referring to the period leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
We have two classes of forecasters: those who don’t know and those who know they don’t know.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
Variants:
- There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: Those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know.
- You can divide the world into those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know.
- There are those who don't know, and there are those who don't know they don't know.
- We have two kinds of forecasters: Those who don't know ... and those who don't know they don't know.
- There are two kinds of economists: those who don't know the future, and those who don't know they don't know.
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
