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The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.

John Maynard Keynes

Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Convention Failure Teaching Wisdom World
Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Argument Balance Budget Defeat Fruit Object Strange
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Easy Economist Ideas Politics Rule World
I do not know which makes a man more conservative – to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Conservatism Known Man Myself Past Present
Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Fade Market Yourself
I’d rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Choice Myself Right Wrong
One blames politicians, not for inconsistency but for obstinacy. They are the interpreters, not the masters, of our fate. It is their job, in fact, to register the fact accomplished.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Accomplishment Blame Fact Master Obstinate Politician
All the political parties alike have their origins in past ideas and not in new ideas and none more conspicuously so than the Marxists .
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Ideas Origin Party Politics
The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Character Habitat Kind Man Power Surround
The introduction of a substantial Government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available,with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation in the United States.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Government Introduction Speculation Transaction
I 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 KEYNES

Believe Economics Problem Revolution Thinking World Writing
Ideas shape the course of history.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course History Ideas Shape
The principle objectives in life are love, the creation and enjoyment if aesthetic experience, the pursuit of knowledge. Love comes a long way first.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Experience Knowledge Life Love Objective Principle
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Citizenship Important Inflation Process Secret
Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Average Believe Discover Interest Opinion
For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Income Justification Social Wealth

The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.

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The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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