I have not had any serious non-academic job.

Meaning of the quote

Amartya Sen, an Indian philosopher, is simply saying that he has never had a real job outside of academia. He has spent his entire career working as a professor and researcher, and has not had to work in any other type of profession. This quote suggests that his life has been focused on intellectual and academic pursuits, rather than practical or non-academic work.

About Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen is an eminent Indian economist and philosopher who has made significant contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, and development economics. He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna.

More about the author

More quotes from Amartya Sen

From the mid-1970s, I also started work on the causation and prevention of famines.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

It is also very engaging – and a delight – to go back to Bangladesh as often as I can, which is not only my old home, but also where some of my closest friends and collaborators live and work.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

The curriculum of the school did not neglect India’s cultural, analytical and scientific heritage, but was very involved also with the rest of the world.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

I was born in a University campus and seem to have lived all my life in one campus or another.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

I have not had any serious non-academic job.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

People’s identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way – quite suddenly – to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

When the Nobel award came my way, it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions, including literacy, basic health care and gender equity, aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

The student community of Presidency College was also politically most active.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

But the idea that I should be a teacher and a researcher of some sort did not vary over the years.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher

I left Delhi, in 1971, shortly after Collective Choice and Social Welfare was published in 1970.

Amartya Sen

Indian economist and philosopher