“To our generation Einstein has been made to become a double symbol – a symbol of the mind travelling in the cold regions of space, and a symbol of the brave and generous outcast, pure in heart and cheerful of spirit.”

Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.

I’d rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.

The Economic Problem, the problem of want and poverty and the economic struggle between classes and nations, is nothing but a frightful muddle, a transitory and unnecessary muddle.

It is a good thing to make mistakes so long as you’re found out quickly.

The considerations upon which expectations of prospective yields are based are partly existing facts which we can assume to be known more or less for certain, and partly future events which can only be forecasted with more or less confidence.

Well, when I get new information, I rethink my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?

The destruction of the inducement to invest by an excessive liquidity-preference was the outstanding evil, the prime impediment to the growth of wealth, in the ancient and medieval worlds.

It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

Investing is an activity of forecasting the yield over the life of the asset; speculation is the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market.

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

Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel – these are things which should in their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible and above all let finance be primarily national.

Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement.

The cheerful loser is a sort of winner.

The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards. Cheerfulness is the off-shoot of goodness.

Difficulties, by bracing the mind to overcome them, assist cheerfulness, as exercise assists digestion.

Let’s be cheerful! We have no more right to steal the brightness out of the day for our own family than we have to steal the purse of a stranger.

I am watching the Earth. The visibility is good. I feel well and cheerful. The machine is functioning normally.

The banjo is such a happy instrument–you can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.

People in general want to build somebody up and then try to knock them down. They always root for the underdog.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.