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.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNESThus, 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
More John Maynard Keynes Quotes
-
-
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 -
To suggest social action for the public good to the city London is like discussing The Origin of Species to a Bishop sixty years ago.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant’s profit, we have begun to change our civilization.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
One’s knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, – but generally to be obtained at your neighbor’s expense.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
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.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
Perhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
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.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
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 -
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 -
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 -
The power to become habituated to his surroundings and therefore to no longer be grateful for what is good in it is a marked characteristic of mankind and needs to be fought against if a person is to be happy.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
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.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES -
I am myself impressed by the great social advantages of increasing the stock of capital until it ceases to be scarce.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES