Julien Comardelle

“I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

“In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest.

Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.”
― Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

“Universities began learning the art of turning the insights of their researchers into large chunks of money by hiring more lawyers and making new kinds of deals, becoming experts in protecting intellectual property, installing startup incubators, and building research parks. Seen from this angle, it looks like universities and scientists aren't fighting against the profit motive; they've been infected by it.”
― Thomas Hager

“The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. "Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. "Turn on the TV," he'd say. "What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products." Fuckin' A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War