How could economics not be behavioral? If it isn't behavioral, what the hell is it?
Charlie MungerRead
Is there such thing as a cheerful pessimist? That's what I am.
Interpretation
A cheerful pessimist maintains a positive outlook while being realistic about challenges.
This quote by Charlie Munger captures the essence of someone who acknowledges the potential difficulties and negatives in life but chooses to face them with optimism. While pessimism often implies a focus on what could go wrong, a cheerful pessimist finds joy and humor in life despite this acknowledgment, suggesting a balanced perspective that combines realism with positivity.
In practice
While discussing life challenges during a motivational speech.
How could economics not be behavioral? If it isn't behavioral, what the hell is it?
The world of derivatives is full of holes that very few people are really aware of. It's like hydrogen and oxygen sitting on the corner waiting for a little flame.
I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don't believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody's that smart.
Economics is in many respects the queen of the soft sciences. It's expected to be better than the rest. It's my view that economics is better at the multi-disciplinary stuff than the rest of the soft science. And it's also my view that it's still lousy.
Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading.
Economics profession, they've been - they've been confident in various formulas, but economics is not physics. The same formula that works in one decade doesn't work in the next. Economics is a difficult subject.
The gospel is not a truth among other truths. Rather, it sets a question mark against all truths.
Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.
But this was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach.
Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.
When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.
Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.