It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESIt is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESThe businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESBut my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn’t you argue the other side?” He said, “That’s true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESHow long will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESFor my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESIt economics is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to draw correct conclusions.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESAs time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method of investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESIt is investment, i.e. the increased production of material wealth in the shape of capital goods, which alone increases national wealth.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESInvestment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESI believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize – not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years – the way the world thinks about economic problems.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESThe boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESThe disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESA speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESIt is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESThe central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESWhenever you save five shillings you put a man out of work for a day.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES