# Quote — Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers

> Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits.

- Author: [Robert Heilbroner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner.md)
- Book: [The Worldly Philosophers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner/the-worldly-philosophers.md)
- Page: 224
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Heilbroner#The_Worldly_Philosophers_(1953)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner/the-worldly-philosophers/very-few-of-the

## More from this book

> But while Ricardo, the economist, walked like a god (although he was a modest and retiring person), Malthus was relegated to a lower status.

p. 77 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner/the-worldly-philosophers/but-while-ricardo.md)

> If an economy in the doldrums could drift indefinitely, the price of government inaction might be graver by far than the consequences of bold unorthodoxy.

p. 269 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner/the-worldly-philosophers/if-an-economy.md)

> It may strike us as odd that the idea of gain is a relatively modern one; we are schooled to believe that man is essentially an acquisitive creature and that left to himself he will behave as any self-respecting businessman would. The profit motive, we are constantly being told, is as old as man himself.
>
> Nothing could be further from the truth.

p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-heilbroner/the-worldly-philosophers/it-may-strike.md)