Paul Anthony Samuelson

Every good cause is worth some inefficiency.

The theory of economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable to policy.

A meaningful theorem is a statement about the world which could be wrong.

The methodology of positive economics is, in principle, simple.

Optimization is the unifying thread of economic analysis.

Comparative statics is a central technique in economic theory.

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

Much of economic theory is concerned with the deduction of testable implications from simple postulates.

Stability analysis is essential in understanding economic equilibria.

The first-order conditions of optimization are necessary but not sufficient.

The concept of equilibrium is central to economic analysis.

Many problems in economics reduce to the maximization or minimization of some function.