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Opportunity Cost Quotes

Browse 33 quotes about Opportunity Cost.

Opportunity Cost Quotes

“There is always opportunity cost in choosing one path over others. The betting elements of decisions—choice, probability, risk, etc.—are more obvious in some situations than others. Investments are clearly bets. A decision about a stock (buy, don’t buy, sell, hold, not to mention esoteric investment options) involves a choice about the best use of financial resources. Incomplete information and factors outside of our control make all our investment choices uncertain. We evaluate what we can, figure out what we think will maximize our investment money, and execute. Deciding not to invest or not to sell a stock, likewise, is a bet. These are the same decisions I make during a hand of poker: fold, check, call, bet, or raise.”

DecisionPathChoiceControlUncertainProbabilityInvestMaximizeBetOpportunity Cost
Book:Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
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“Whenever we choose an alternative (whether it is taking a new job or moving to Des Moines for month), we are automatically rejecting every other possible choice. All those rejected alternatives are paths to possible futures where things could be better or worse than the path we chose. There is potential opportunity cost in any choice we forgo.”

PathChoiceBetterWorseOpportunity CostForgo
Book:Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
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“Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of modern scientific achievements or even by the standards of England in the late eighteenth century. However, it must be borne in mind that to be held back at one stage means that it is impossible to go on to a further stage. When a person is forced to leave school after only two years of primary school education, it is no reflection on him that he is academically and intellectually less developed than someone who had the opportunity to be schooled right through to university level. What Africa experienced in the early centuries of trade was precisely a loss of development opportunity, and this is of greatest importance.”

OpportunityDevelopmentSlave TradeOpportunity Cost
Book:How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
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“When the options are few, we can be happy with what we choose since we are confident that it is the best possible choice for us. When the options are practically infinite, though, we believe that the perfect choice for us must be out there somewhere and that it’s our responsibility to find it. Choosing can become a lose-lose situation: if we make a choice quickly without fully exploring the available options, we’ll regret potentially missing out on something better; if we do exhaustively consider all the options, we’ll expend more effort (which won’t necessarily increase the quality of our final choice), and if we discover other good options, we may regret that we can’t choose them all.”

ChoiceOpportunity CostOptimity
Book:The Art of Choosing
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“Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines?”

IfsWorldHelpingMightPainOpportunityLinesPovertyMissingFrontsIgnoranceAdventureCostLosingSafetyStuckKingdomsGod LoveCagesDestinedGeeseStaggeringMissing OutPredictabilitySeize The OpportunityOpportunity CostWild GeeseLosing Out
Author:Mark Batterson
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“Money is very difficult to think about. So, we think about money as the opportunity cost of money. So, we at some point went to a Toyota dealership and we asked people, what will you not be able to do in the future if you bought this Toyota? Now, you would expect people to have an answer. But people were kind of shocked by the question. They never thought about it before. So, the most we got was people said, "Well, if I can't buy this Toyota, if I buy this Toyota, I can't buy a Honda." What is this thing? What is this value of price? Very hard to think about it.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWellsKindSaidI CanHardAbleValuesOpportunityDifficultAnswersCostShockedToyotaOpportunity CostHonda
Author:Dan Ariely
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“Obviously, consideration of costs is key, including opportunity costs. Of course capital isn't free. It's easy to figure out your cost of borrowing, but theorists went bonkers on the cost of equity capital. They say that if you're generating a 100% return on capital, then you shouldn't invest in something that generates an 80% return on capital. It's crazy.”

IfsCoursesOpportunityEasyCrazyFiguresKeysReturnCostIncludingConsiderationEquityBorrowingTheoristsOpportunity Cost
Author:Charlie Munger
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“Finding a single investment that will return 20% per year for 40 years tends to happen only in dreamland. In the real world, you uncover an opportunity, and then you compare other opportunities with that. And you only invest in the most attractive opportunities. That's your opportunity cost. That's what you learn in freshman economics. The game hasn't changed at all. That's why Modern Portfolio Theory is so asinine.”

WorldYearsRealHappensOpportunityGamesModernChangedTheoryReturnCostFindingsEconomicsInvestmentCompareAttractiveReal WorldPortfoliosFreshmanDreamlandOpportunity Cost
Author:Charlie Munger
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“Human enhancement is now being driven by military imperatives, at least in the US, because civilian society is more conservative in its approach. It’s a missed opportunity for a society-wide push to understand and reduce our need to power the brain down for hours every day. Every hour we sleep is an hour we are not working, finding mates, or teaching our children; if sleep does not have a vital adaptive function to pay for its staggering opportunity cost, it could be ‘the greatest mistake the evolutionary process ever made’.”

IfsNeedsHumansChildrenDoeMadeOpportunityProcessHoursSleepPayMistakeBrainTeachingMilitaryCostFindingsApproachFunctionOur ChildrenConservativeWideDrivenMatesImperativesCiviliansStaggeringMissed OpportunityEnhancementAdaptiveOpportunity Cost
Author:Jessa Gamble
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