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The 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 Keynes

If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Act Consistent Optimism Realize
Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Affair Death Guide
Ideas shape the course of history.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course History Ideas Shape
Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Case Decision Reality Reason
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
The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Capital Deliver Goodness International Success Virtue War
As 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 KEYNES

Believe Fair Investment Management Myself Right Time
It is investment, i.e. the increased production of material wealth in the shape of capital goods, which alone increases national wealth.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Capital Investment National Production Wealth
The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Right Time Treasure
If human nature felt no temptation to take a chance there might not be much investment merely as a result of cold calculation.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Calculation Human Nature Result Temptation
The 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 KEYNES

Business Contribute Himself Man Society Tolerance
But 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 KEYNES

Address Change Evidence Mindset
Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Hands History Save Society True
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
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Mistake Thinking Wild Word
Thus, the weight of my criticism is directed against the inadequacy of the theoretical foundations of the laissez-faire doctrine upon which I was brought up and for many years I taught
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Criticism Foundation Inadequate Weight

The 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.

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The 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.

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