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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

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Future Importance Money Present
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 immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Benefit Capital Division Greatness Kind Man Society War Wealth
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
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
There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Disaster Investment Rational World
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
The division of the spoils between the victors will also provide employment for a powerful office, whose doorsteps the greedy adventurers and jealous concession hunters of twenty or thirty nations will crowd and defile.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Crowd Division Employment Nation Provide Spoil
How long will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Difficult Necessary Pay Performance Service
Gold is a relic from a time when government’s were less trustworthy in these matters (currency debasement) than they are now.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Currency Gold Government Time Trust
It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Balance Bank Better Citizenship Man
It is Enterprise which build and improves the world’s possessions. If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates whatever may be happening to Thrift; and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays, whatever Thrift may be doing.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Build Enterprise Improve Possession Sleep Thrift Wealth World
The biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Acceptance Big Forget Ideas Old People Problem
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
The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Envelope Future Ignorance Object Ourselves Skills Social
It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Economics Fools Temporary
Obstinacy can bring only a penalty and no reward.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Obstinate Penalty Reward
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.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Brave Cheerful Generation Heart Mindset Symbol Traveling
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Better Choice Right Wrong
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
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
Ideas shape the course of history.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course History Ideas Shape
The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump; but in abolishing slumps and thus keeping us permanently in a quasi-boom.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Cycle Finding Permanent Remedy Right Trade
The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Behavior Creation Economics Head Heart Problem Religion
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Convention Failure Teaching Wisdom World
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
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Code Greatness Importance Moral Social Wealth

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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