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It is the duty of the long-term investor to endure great losses with equanimity.

John Maynard Keynes

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
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
I believe that the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than from that of Marx .
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Future Learning Myself
When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Activity Country Development Job
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Conclusion Information Yourself
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 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
Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Beginning Doubt Fast Spread
The forces of the nineteenth century have run their course and are exhausted.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course Exhaust Focus Run
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
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 astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Economics Fools Temporary
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Belief Benefit Capital Man Nasty Reason Work
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
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Better Choice Right Wrong
But whilst there may be intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of land, there are no intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of capital.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Land Reason Scarcity
An investor who proposes to ignore near-term market fluctuations needs greater resources for safety and must not operate on so large a scale, if at all, with borrowed money.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Borrow Ignorance Investor Large Money Operate Propose Safety Scale
Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Economy Intellectual Man Myself Practice Quite Slave
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
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Citizenship Important Inflation Process Secret
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Age Episode Man Progress
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

Error Excessive Ideas National Power
Men will not always die quietly.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Death Man Quiet
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
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
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
Well, when I get new information, I rethink my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Information Myself Position Thinking Yourself

It is the duty of the long-term investor to endure great losses with equanimity.

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It is the duty of the long-term investor to endure great losses with equanimity.

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