Below are some quotations I selected for von Neumann to go on an 
economist's calendar.  If any of you have any "better" selections 
please let me know.


A few ground rules for the discussion:

	1. Space is limited, so please accompany any suggested quotation 
with a suggestion of which quotation to cut.

	2. The new quotation can be no longer than the cut quotation.
	
	3. Please give the source for any quotation you give--I will have to 
get permissions for each.


John Von Neumann

"We hope to establish satisfactorily, after developing a few 
plausible schematizations, that the typical problems of economic 
behavior become strictly identical with the mathematical notions of 
suitable games of strategy." (2, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior).

"A complexity of theoretical forms must be expected in social theory. 
Our statis analysis alone necessitated the creation of a conceptual 
and formal mechanism which is very different from anything used, for 
instance, in mathematical physics. Thus the conventional view of a 
solution as a uniquely defined number of aggregate of numbers was 
seen to be too narrow for our purposes, in spite of its success in 
other fields. The emphasis on mathematical methods seems to be 
shifted more wards combinatorics and set theory-and away from the 
algorithm of differential equations which dominate mathematical 
physics." (45, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior).

"A complete discussion of automata can be obtained only by taking a 
broader view of these things and considering automata which can have 
outputs something like themselves. Now, one has to be careful what 
one means by this. There is no question of producing matter out of 
nothing. Rather, one imagines automata which can modify objects 
similar to themselves, or effect syntheses by picking up parts and 
putting them together, or take synthesized entities apart." Theory of 
Self-Reproducing Automata (edited and completed by Arthur Burks, 
University of Illinois Press, 1966)

"The essential phenomenon that we wish to grasp is this: goods are 
produced from each other and we want to determine which processes 
will be used; what the relative velocity will be with which the total 
quantity of goods increases; what prices will obtain; what the rate 
of interest will be. In order to isolate this phenomenon completely 
we assume furthermore: Consumption of goods takes place only through 
the process of production which include necessities of life consumed 
by workers and employees. In other words we assume that all income in 
excess of necessities of life will be re-invested." (2, Model of 
General Economic Equilibrium The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 13, 
No. 1 (1945 - 1946).

David Colander