Incentives Quotes

Capitalism drives the employers to do their worst to the employed, and the employed to do the least for them. And it boasts all the time of the incentive it provides to both to do their best! . . . The reason the Capitalist system has worked so far without jamming for more than a few months at a time, and then only in places, is that it has not yet succeeded in making a conquest of human nature so complete that everybody acts on strictly business principles.

There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives.

Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.

When emulation leads us to strive for self-elevation by merit alone, and not by belittling another, then it is one of the grandest possible incentives to action.

Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny.

Some people die twice: once when they retire, and again when they actually pass away. Fear of the first one is a big incentive for me to keep working.

Some are trapped in boxes of pea-sized Christianity, full of myths about missions that rob them of incentive to care about the unreached

Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.

Capitalism has given people both the liberty and the incentive to create, produce, and trade, thereby generating prosperity.

Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment.

When we face our problems, they disappear. So learn from failure and let success be the silent incentive.

It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.

Curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives

Politicians and bureaucrats are no different from the rest of us. They will maximize their incentives just like everybody else.

The most difficult thing is to recognize that sometimes we too are blinded by our own incentives. Because we don’t see how our conflicts of interest work on us.

Congress is headed in the wrong direction with this bill which removes any and all incentives from the food industry to improve their products for children.

An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation

I get a bit of a kick out of exporting private enterprise and incentives.

Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.

New technology is useful, but it's inefficient and ugly; it knows it'll be obsolete by lunchtime tomorrow, so it has no incentive to be anything else

Every company, every boardroom in which I sit, has a plan, and they have objectives, goals, and a process. And to make it work, the pressure and incentive have to come from the top.

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome

Any property that's open to common use gets destroyed. Because everyone has incentive to use it to the max, but no one has incentive to maintain it.

The tragedy is that there is so much more incentive - money - to destroy the ecology than there is to preserve it.

Incentives are not strategy, they are tactics. Defensive measures.

The basic idea that incentives can be used to motivate behavior is a powerful one. It works for employees, and it has a clear place in parenting, as anyone who has tried to potty-train a recalcitrant toddler with sticker rewards knows.

With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.

Lots of young players have triumphed at United, so why can't it happen to me? I'm not worried I'm young - it's an incentive to do the best I can.

I think we also have learned the lesson that we have to have better incentive structures.

Forces of Destruction: grades in school, merit system, incentive pay, business plans, quotas.

The Korean economic miracle was the result of a clever and pragmatic mixture of market incentives and state direction.

The best move you can make in negotiation is to think of an incentive the other person hasn't even thought of - and then meet it.

Frustrated love has been the incentive for many great works.

I always felt that I hadn't achieved what I wanted to achieve. I always felt I could get better. That's the whole incentive.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.

I love the ability to work with very good managers, and to provide the right incentives for them, and truly become a partner with that management, and make that management take a long view.

The truth is, aging can be your realest opportunity to decide how best to live - and the best incentive for getting you to do just that.

People who earn reasonable amounts are being turned into the anti-Christ. I think 45 per cent tax is a colossal amount to take off somebody, and it is taking away the incentive to earn.

We are a consumer company and our success is directly linked to our users trusting us. Therefore we have the same incentive as the user: they want to see relevant advertising so their experience of Google is positive and we want to deliver it.

Outright bans on plastic bags may not be the best solution, but education and incentives to get people to stop using them are necessary.

If we raise taxes on corporations, what incentive will they have to make money other than the fact that it's the sole reason they exist.

If I thought that any of this was pre ordained, then it takes away any kind of incentive to struggle, or to put up with things, to reach for those impossible dreams, all those dramatic things.

The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.

The answer for healthcare is market incentives, not healthcare by a Godzilla-sized government bureaucracy.

I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

It's not just buying the company. Sure, we picked the right companies, and we picked the right management and, most importantly, we've given them the right incentive to perform.

Just because scientists have the knowledge to do it, the technology to do it, and some may even have a financial motive or other incentive to do it, does not make it right.

It's for management to enthuse & motivate employees towards excellence in service; the profit incentive doesn't last