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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

Investment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Difficult Expectation Investment Scarce
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 duty of “saving” became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Growth Object Religion Save True Virtue
I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Crime End Government Myself Work
The friends of gold will have to be extremely wise and moderate if they are to avoid a revolution.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Avoid Friendship Gold Revolution Wisdom
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
The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Break Physics Splendid Work
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
I am myself impressed by the great social advantages of increasing the stock of capital until it ceases to be scarce.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Advantage Greatness Impression Scarce Social Stock
There is no intrinsic reason for the scarcity of capital.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Capital Reason Scarcity
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
I was suffering from my chronic delusion that one good share is safer than ten bad ones, and I am always forgetting that hardly anyone else shares this particular delusion.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Delusion Forget Goodness Suffering
Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Case Decision Reality Reason
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Difficult Escape Ideas Lying Mindset Ourselves
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
It is a good thing to make mistakes so long as you’re found out quickly.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Finding Goodness Mistake Quick Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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