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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

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Economy Humble Level Management Splendid
The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Economy Kind Liberty Man Politics Problem Society
There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Finding Harm Oneself Wrong
It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Attachment Certain Expectation Fools
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Different Education Incompetent
In the long run we are all dead.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Death Philosophy Wasted Time
The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Capital Deliver Goodness International Success Virtue War
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Age Episode Man Progress
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
It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Confidence Limitation Mistake Reason Special Thinking
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
Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Government Hide Mistake Money
The introduction of a substantial Government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available,with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation in the United States.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Government Introduction Speculation Transaction
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

Economics Nation Necessary Poverty Problem Struggle
It is the long-term investor, who will in practice come in for the most criticism… For it is the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Essence Investor Opinion Practice Willing
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

Address Change Evidence Mindset
Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Affair Death Guide
Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Average Believe Discover Interest Opinion
Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Hands History Save Society True
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
It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Balance Bank Better Citizenship Man
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
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 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 study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Economics Gift Order Special Study
Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Fade Market Yourself
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

Easy Economist Ideas Politics Rule World

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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