Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 145 of the original 1960 Harvard University Press edition of Frank Knight’s collection of lectures, delivered in 1958 at the University of Virginia, titled Intelligence and Democratic Action:

The first commandment, with respect to any intelligent action is self-evident: “compare the alternatives,” beginning with understanding  what they are. But that is what people dislike doing. And the second and third are, appraise the alternatives, and then act on the basis of the best knowledge or judgment that is to be had. The basic axiom is that it is better not to act unless it can be done intelligently; as people are and as the world is, the odds are strong that bad results on balance, rather than good, will follow from acting ignorantly, at random – and acting on false knowledge is of course worse; but unhappily it is more common.

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