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If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.

John Maynard Keynes

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
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
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
It is investment, i.e. the increased production of material wealth in the shape of capital goods, which alone increases national wealth.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Capital Investment National Production Wealth
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
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
The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Right Time Treasure
Thus, 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
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Criticism Foundation Inadequate Weight
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
When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Mindset Myself Persuade Wrong
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
The engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Drive Profit Thrift
There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Disaster Investment Rational World
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Better Choice Right Wrong
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

Forecast Investment Marketing Prediction Speculation

If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.

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If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.

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Popular Authors

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