Pareto....................................

Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto (1848-1923) was born into a very tumultuous era of European history.  Perhaps that is where his rather jaundiced (he might prefer "realistic") view of mankind derived.  An engineer by training, Pareto evolved into an economist, sociologist, mathematician, professor, and philosopher.  As noted in the Mandelbrot quote above, he was also a relentless researcher.  He is best known as the source (but not the namer)  of the 80%-20% Pareto principle.   Here are a few quotes attributed to Pareto:

“When it is useful to them, men can believe a theory of which they know nothing more than its name.” 

“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.”

“Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.” 

“The diverse natures of men, combined with the necessity to satisfy in some manner the sentiment which desires them to be equal, has had the result that in the democracies they have endeavored to provide the appearance of power in the people and the reality of power in an elite.”

“Assume that the new elite were clearly and simply to proclaim its intentions which are to supplant the old elite; no one would come to its assistance, it would be defeated before having fought a battle. On the contrary, it appears to be asking nothing for itself, well knowing that without asking anything in advance it will obtain what it wants as a consequence of its victory.”