a gaffe occurs not when someone lies, but when they say what they really think

Ascribed to journalist Michael Kinsley, eg by Michael Cooper, In Balancing Act on National Security, a Stumble, New York Times 25 June 2008

See also The Columbia World of Quotations (1996) #32773, "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth," Guardian (London, Jan. 14, 1992)

The challenge for the government [is] managing the creative destruction so that capitalism does not ... destroy itself for ... political reasons

--- Brad DeLong paraphrasing Schumpeter, in Creative Destruction's Reconstruction: Joseph Schumpeter Revisited, The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 7, 2007

Fuller quote:

“Schumpeter, like his contemporary Karl Polanyi, feared for the long-term survival of capitalism. Bureaucrats and ideologues threatened by creative destruction would resist it. The challenge for the government in managing the market thus becomes not just the Adam Smithian task of securing property rights, enforcing contracts, and providing civil order, but also the tremendously difficult job of managing the creative destruction so that capitalism does not undermine and destroy itself for essentially political reasons. Schumpeter did not think the beast could be managed, because democracy is hostile to great inequalities, and socialism even more so.”

Four thousand pieces of a Porsche are more difficult to value than a Porsche itself and the sum of the parts does not equal the whole

--- Bill Michael of KPMG, an accountancy firm, quoted in a story about the role of fair value accounting in the sub-prime debacle, Black Mark, The Economist, May 15th 2008

Quote in context:

"The fact that deciding on a fair value has been so tough reflects the complexity of the products as much as the state of the markets. Setting a price for derivatives that have been repeatedly repackaged, overcollateralised and subordinated is difficult in any conditions. “Four thousand pieces of a Porsche are more difficult to value than a Porsche itself and the sum of the parts does not equal the whole,” says Bill Michael of KPMG, an accountancy firm (choosing an appropriate car)."

A state that uses the wicked to govern the good always enjoys order and becomes strong

--- Shang Yang (c. 390 - 338 BCE), chief adviser to the prince of Qin, author of the reforms that led Qin to conquer the rest of China.

Shanqiunshu 20, quoted in Mark Elvin, “Was There a Transcendental Breakthrough in China?,” in S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (Albany 1980), p. 352, quoted in K. Armstrong, The Great Transformation (New York 2006), p. 335

As given in Armstrong: "A state that uses good people to govern the wicked will be plagued by disorder and destroyed. A state that uses the wicked to govern the good always enjoys order and becomes strong."