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It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard; it’s getting rid of the old ones.

John Maynard Keynes

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
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
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Economy Humble Level Management Splendid
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 key to selecting the winner isn’t choosing the face you think is the most beautiful but rather the face other people will pick
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Face People Selection Thinking Winner
Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Affair Death Guide
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

Better Government Important Individual Present Worst
Ideas shape the course of history.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course History Ideas Shape
When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Compromise Expectation Final Position Result
There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Currency Existence Subtle Sure
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
Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Government Hide Mistake Money
It is the long-term investor, who will in practice come in for the most criticism… For it is the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Essence Investor Opinion Practice Willing
The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Economics Gift Order Special Study
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
In the long run we are all dead.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Death Philosophy Wasted Time

It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard; it’s getting rid of the old ones.

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It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard; it’s getting rid of the old ones.

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