Qualifications for an economist, by John M. Keynes

"The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy or pure science? An easy subject, at which very few excel!
The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be a mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher -in some degree. He must underestand symbols and speak in words. He must  contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and desinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, vet sometimes as
near the earth as politician."
John Maynard Keynes, cited by Robert L. Heilbroner, in "The Wordly Philosophers" (New York, Touchstone, 1999), 7th edition,
ISBN 0-684-86214-X.

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