Quotes: Economists, Violence

Random quote from The Economist, slightly paraphrased:

"Economists are at their best when they are thinking the unthinkable,
challenging conventional wisdom and doing other things that are
anything but reassuring."

And now, here's a thought of mine that is almost, but not quite,
entirely unrelated to the above:

"A society can only survive if it has a sufficiently large number of
people who are able to resist violence but who will not initiate
violence. Making people less able or willing to defend themselves is
just as bad as increasing the number of people who will start
trouble."