Vilfredo Pareto > Quotes

“When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“It is a know fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Assume that the new elite were clearly and simply to proclaim its intentions which are to supplant the old elite; no one would come to its assistance, it would be defeated before having fought a battle. On the contrary, it appears to be asking nothing for itself, well knowing that without asking anything in advance it will obtain what it wants as a consequence of its victory.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“The diverse natures of men, combined with the necessity to satisfy in some manner the sentiment which desires them to be equal, has had the result that in the democracies they have endeavored to provide the appearance of power in the people and the reality of power in an elite.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“The world has always belonged to the stronger, and will belong to them for many years to come. Men only respect those who make themselves respected. Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“People reasoning on essences may sometimes substitute certitude for probability, even very great probability. But we know nothing about essences and accordingly lose our certitude.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“80% of results come from 20% of effort/time”
― Vilfredo Pareto, Corso di economia politica (CLASSICI - Economia)

“History is the graveyard of aristocracies.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“For a very long time, and among a large number of peoples, political power has belonged to the owners of the land.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy: A Critical and Variorum Edition

“Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“The art of government lies in finding ways to take advantage of such sentiments, not wasting one’s energy in futile efforts to destroy them; very frequently the sole effect of the latter course is to strengthen them. The person capable of freeing himself from the blind domination of his own sentiments will be able to utilize the sentiments of other people for his own ends … This may be said in general of the relation between ruler and ruled. The statesman who is of greatest service to himself and to his party is the man without prejudice who knows how to profit by the prejudices of others.”
― Pareto Vilfredo, The Mind and Society

“There is not a reactionary, however extreme, who dares speak ill of the god People. It took an eccentric like Nietzsche to dare such a thing, and it makes him look like the exception that proves the rule.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“The sentiment that is very inappropriately named quality is fresh, strong, alert, precisely because it is not, in fact, a sentiment of equality and is not related to any abstraction, as a few naive “intellectuals” still believe; but because it is related to the direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favour, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favour, that latter being their chief concern.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“Once experience is admitted within the theological edifice, the latter begins to crumble – such portion of it, of course, as stands within the experimental domain, for the other wings are safe from any attack by experience. So years, centuries, go by; peoples, governments, manners and systems of living, pass away; and all along new theologies, new systems of metaphysics, keep replacing the old, and each new one is reputed more “true” or much “better” that its predecessors. And in certain cases they may really be better, if by “better” we means more helpful to society; but more “true”, no, if by the term we mean accord with experimental reality. One faith cannot be more scientific than another, and experimental reality is equally overreached by polytheism, Islamism, and Christianity (whether Catholic, Protestant, Liberal, Modernist, or of any other variety); by the innumerable metaphysical sects, including the Kantian, the Hegelian, the Bergsonian, and not excluding the positivistic sects of Comte, Spencer, and other eminent writers too numerous to mention; by the faiths of solidaristes, humanitarians, anti-clericals, and worshippers of Progress; and by as many other faiths as have existed, exist, or can be imagined.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“The efforts of men are utilized in two different ways. They are directed to the production or transformation of economic goods, or else to the appropriation of goods produced by others.”
― Vilfredo Pareto

“As regards the subject class, we gets the following relations:
1. When the subject class contains a number of indviduals desposed to use force and with capable leaders to guide them, the governing class is, in many cases, overthrown and another takes its place. That is easily the ase where governing class are inspired by humanitarian sentiments primarily and very easily if they do not find ways to assimilate the exceptional individuals who come to the front in the subject classes. A humanitarian aristocracy that is closed of stiffly exclusive represents the maximum of insecurity.

2. It is far more difficult to overthrow a governing class that is adept in the shrewd use of chicanery, fraud, corruption; and in the highest degree difficult to overthrow such a class when it successfully assimilates most of the individuals in the subject class who show those same talents, are adept in those same arts, and might therefore become the leaders of such plebeians as are disposed to use violence. Thus left without leadership, without talent, disorganized, the subject class is almost always powerless to set up any lasting regime.

3. So the combination residues (Class I) become to some extent enfeebled in the subject class.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“In politics all ruling classes have at all times identified their own interests with the “interests of the country.” When politicians are afraid of a too rapid increase in the number of proletarians, they are for birth-control and show that Malthusianism is to the interests of public and country. If, instead, they are afraid a population may prove inadequate for their designs, they are against birth-control, and show just as conclusively that their interest is the interest of public and country. And all that is accepted as long as residues remain favourable. The situation changes as residues change never in view of arguments pro or contra.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“We consider it useful to see where this path ends up, which, beginning with State monopolies and keeping on with obligatory unions, obligatory insurance, collective organization of production and the constitution of a welfare state, is leading to the destruction of every individual initiative, the annihilation of all human dignity, and the reduction of men to the level of a flock of sheep.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, Cours d'économie politique professé à l'Universi̧té de Lausanne. Volume v.2 1897 [Leather Bound]

“The parties hostile to "the bourgeoisie" are constantly declaring in their books, pamphlets, and newspapers that it is their intention to annihilate said bourgeoisie root and branch. But show me a single "bourgeois" who in a fit of pique or even in jest dares reply: "You say you want to destroy us? Come aheadand we will do some destroying too." The God of the Christians has blasphemers among His faithful. The god People counts not a one, let alone among his faithful, not even among those who take no stock in him. Humanity has its "misanthropes," but "the People" has no "misodemes." There is no one bold enough to display hatred, or antipathy, or repugnance, or even mere indifference, to it. And all that seems so obvious, so natural, that no one ever gives a thought to it. Indeed to mention it seems as useless as to say that a human being walks on two legs.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“The problem to resolve is the following: first of all, are there some means to diminish, reduce to a minimum, the number of birth of individuals unfit to the conditions of social life? Following from this, if it is not possible to decrease these births, if the increase of the number of these individuals becomes a danger for society, how can we eliminate them, with a minimum of error in their choice and in the suffering inflicted on them, and without overly upsetting the humanitarian sentiments, which it is useful to develop?”
― Vilfredo Pareto, Les systèmes socialistes; par Vilfredo Pareto... Volume v.1 1926 [Leather Bound]