There are few things that lie nearer to the heart of man than his desire of gain, though in many cases this is tempered by his sense of fair play. One might say that it is these two facets of human life that constitute the essence of economics. This collection contains over 1,700 quotations on many aspects of economics including some from the related areas of economic history, law, mathematics, politics and statistics. Most of the quotations are drawn from well-known economic writers such as John Bates Clark, Irving Fisher, Sir John Hicks, Harry Johnson, Lord Keynes, Alfred Marshall, Joan Robinson and Adam Smith. There are also quotations from other writers such as Ambrose Bierce, Samuel Johnson, William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. The book covers the whole range of human experience from the solemn and profound to the witty and uproarious: there are few areas of life that do not interrelate in some way with economic experience. To help the reader the quotations are arranged into 133 topics including Avarice, Banking, Borrowing, Gambling, Gold, Inflation, Taxation, Unemployment and Wealth. For ease of reference the book contains both an extensive key word index and an index of authors and sources. The collection will be useful to anyone with an interest in economic issues, whether they be accountants, businessmen, politicians, journalists, academics or students of the subject. The book can be used generally, for interest, or more specifically by those requiring a particular quotation, studying the work of some individual or group of economists, or some specific area or concept of economics. - Dust jacket.