Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason.

Gli uomini seguono i loro sentimenti e il proprio interesse, ma fa loro piacere immaginare di seguire la ragione.

Vilfredo Pareto

Economists

Vilfredo Pareto

Born 1848 in Paris to exiled Italian nobility. Engineer turned economist, succeeded Walras at Lausanne aged forty-eight. Formulated Pareto optimality and the 80/20 rule. Major contributor to both economics and sociology.

View this figure's profile

Source: Manuale di economia politica (1906); Manual of Political Economy (English trans. 1971), p. 95Verified

Vilfredo Pareto's Other Quotes

Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections.

Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints.

Related Quotes

Mutual understanding is inherent in human language as its telos.

-- Jürgen Habermas

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

-- Charlie Munger

Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints.

-- Vilfredo Pareto