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Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.

John Maynard Keynes

The 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 KEYNES

Attractive General Ground Investment Opinion Principle
Obstinacy can bring only a penalty and no reward.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Obstinate Penalty Reward
A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Avoid Bank Blame Dangerous Himself Ruin Sound
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
It is the duty of the long-term investor to endure great losses with equanimity.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Greatness Investment Loss Responsibility
Dangerous acts can be done safely in a community which thinks and feels rightly, which would be the way to hell if they were executed by those who think and feel wrongly.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Act Dangerous Feeling Hell Thinking Wrong
But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future .
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Design Dream Future Prosper Trust
If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Bank Manager Mercy Rich Yourself
It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Confidence Limitation Mistake Reason Special Thinking
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Future Importance Money Present
Economists must leave to Adam Smith alone the glory of the Quarto, must pluck the day, fling pamphlets into the wind, write always sub specie temporis , and achieve immortality by accident, if at all.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Accident Achievement Economist Immortal Writing
Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Age Employment Logic Lyrics Poetry
Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Build Increase War Wealth
It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Dangerous Evil Goodness Ideas
The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Animal Market Move Reason Spirit
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

Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.

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Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.

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