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The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

John Maynard Keynes

The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Better Government Important Individual Present Worst
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
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Avoid Carry Intellectual Reward Tax
The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Right Time Treasure
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Conclusion Information Yourself
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
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

Believe Economics Problem Revolution Thinking World Writing
Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Case Decision Reality Reason
There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Disaster Investment Rational World
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

Fair God Oneself Pretend Soul
The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Break Physics Splendid Work
I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the invisible hand which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Finding Hands Invisible Myself Solution Trying
Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Chief Exception Ourselves State
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
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

Goodness Gratitude Habitat Happiness Person Power Surrounding
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

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

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The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

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Popular Authors

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