"The greatest good fortune of my return to Cambridge in 1946 was that there, in the spring, I met Elizabeth Fay Ringo. We were married a few months later"
About this Quote
Fortune, in James Tobin's telling, isn’t a market outcome but a human one. An economist famous for modeling risk and rational behavior frames his postwar homecoming with a phrase that sounds like it belongs in a probability lecture: “the greatest good fortune.” Then he immediately cashes out the abstract in a single, disarming variable: meeting Elizabeth Fay Ringo.
The intent is modestly personal, but it also reads like a quiet rebuttal to the profession’s tendency to over-credit systems and under-credit contingency. Tobin returned to Cambridge in 1946, a hinge year: the war ended, universities refilled, American confidence surged, and economics itself was hardening into a policy machine for the Cold War state. In that world, “good fortune” often means grants, appointments, proximity to power. Tobin refuses the expected punchline. His best outcome isn’t institutional; it’s intimate.
The subtext is speed as seriousness. “We were married a few months later” compresses courtship into a brisk sentence, suggesting a postwar tempo where people acted decisively, not because life was simple, but because it had just proved how fragile it was. The line also borrows the cadence of a report: date, event, result. That coolness is the point. It lets feeling register without performance, a kind of emotional austerity that matches the era and the man.
Context matters: Cambridge in 1946 is a magnet for ambition. Tobin’s choice to memorialize love as his crowning “return” reframes success itself, proposing that the best hedge against uncertainty isn’t another credential; it’s a shared life.
The intent is modestly personal, but it also reads like a quiet rebuttal to the profession’s tendency to over-credit systems and under-credit contingency. Tobin returned to Cambridge in 1946, a hinge year: the war ended, universities refilled, American confidence surged, and economics itself was hardening into a policy machine for the Cold War state. In that world, “good fortune” often means grants, appointments, proximity to power. Tobin refuses the expected punchline. His best outcome isn’t institutional; it’s intimate.
The subtext is speed as seriousness. “We were married a few months later” compresses courtship into a brisk sentence, suggesting a postwar tempo where people acted decisively, not because life was simple, but because it had just proved how fragile it was. The line also borrows the cadence of a report: date, event, result. That coolness is the point. It lets feeling register without performance, a kind of emotional austerity that matches the era and the man.
Context matters: Cambridge in 1946 is a magnet for ambition. Tobin’s choice to memorialize love as his crowning “return” reframes success itself, proposing that the best hedge against uncertainty isn’t another credential; it’s a shared life.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marriage |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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