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Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

John Maynard Keynes

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
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
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
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
I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

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

Difficult Expectation Investment Scarce
It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard; it’s getting rid of the old ones.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Hard Ideas Old Oneself
The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Distribution Economy Income Mistake Outstanding Wealth
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
If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Farm Raining Season Stock Summer
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
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

Behavior Creation Economics Head Heart Problem Religion
The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Character Habitat Kind Man Power Surround
The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, – but generally to be obtained at your neighbor’s expense.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Desire Glory Love Nation Yourself
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

Benefit Capital Division Greatness Kind Man Society War Wealth
Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Chief Exception Ourselves State

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

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Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

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