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Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged.

John Maynard Keynes

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
Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Case Decision Reality Reason
Ideas shape the course of history.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Course History Ideas Shape
When I find new information I change my mind; What do you do?
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Finding Information Mindset
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
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Better Choice Right Wrong
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
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Different Education Incompetent
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
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Citizenship Important Inflation Process Secret
The central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Attractive General Ground Investment Opinion Principle
Never in history was there a method devised of such efficacy for setting each country’s advantage at variance with its neighbours’ as the international gold (or, formerly, silver) standard.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Gold History International Method Standard
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
To our generation Einstein has been made to become a double symbol – a symbol of the mind travelling in the cold regions of space, and a symbol of the brave and generous outcast, pure in heart and cheerful of spirit.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Brave Cheerful Generation Heart Mindset Symbol Traveling
Investment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Difficult Expectation Investment Scarce
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 KEYNES

Agreement Move Philosophy Virtual
As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method of investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Believe Fair Investment Management Myself Right Time
Economists must leave to Adam Smith alone the glory of the Quarto, must pluck the day, fling pamphlets into the wind, write always sub specie temporis , and achieve immortality by accident, if at all.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Accident Achievement Economist Immortal Writing
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
Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Argument Balance Budget Defeat Fruit Object Strange
But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future .
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Design Dream Future Prosper Trust
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 engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Drive Profit Thrift
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

Allow Beginning Change Civilization Disobedient Profit
It is Enterprise which build and improves the world’s possessions. If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates whatever may be happening to Thrift; and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays, whatever Thrift may be doing.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Build Enterprise Improve Possession Sleep Thrift Wealth World
When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Change Mindset Myself Persuade Wrong
There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

Finding Harm Oneself Wrong

Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged.

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Logic , like lyrical poetry , is no employment for the middle-aged.

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