John Maynard Keynes Quotes
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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.
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Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians.
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The numeric system was invented to help man to put order in the chaos of the world.
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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.
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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.
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I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
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I feel no shame at being found still owning a share when the bottom of the market comes…I would go much further than that. I should say that it is from time to time the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself. … An investor…should be aiming primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these.
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Obstinacy can bring only a penalty and no reward.
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Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.
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When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
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It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the State to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary. Moreover, the necessary measures of socialization can be introduced gradually and without a break in the general traditions of society.
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A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances, and to confess a conventional respectability, which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men.
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I think that Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself is in many ways extremely objectionable.
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The spectacle of modern investment markets has sometimes moved me towards the conclusion that to make the purchase of an investment permanent and indissoluble, like marriage, except by reason of death or other grave cause, might be a useful remedy for our contemporary evils. For this would force the investor to direct his mind to the long-term prospects and to those only.
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When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.
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The study of economics does not seem to require any specialised gifts of an unusually high order.
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The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, — but generally to be obtained at your neighbor's expense.
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Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel - these are things which should in their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible and above all let finance be primarily national.
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Canada is a place of infinite promise. We like the people, and if one ever had to emigrate, this would be the destination, not the U.S.A. The hills, lakes and forests make it a place of peace and repose of the mind, such as one never finds in the U.S.A.
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For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.
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Conservatism leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal.
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[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.
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Professional investment may be likened to those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole.
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If, however, a government refrains from regulations and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer.
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The Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.
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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
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It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
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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.
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When the facts change, I change my mind.
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Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
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Related Authors
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Alfred Marshall Economist -
Jean-Baptiste Say Economist -
Paul Samuelson Economist -
Adam Smith Philosopher -
Francois Quesnay Economist -
John Stuart Mill Philosopher -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Friedrich August von Hayek Economist -
Sir John Richard Hicks Economist -
Michal Kalecki Economist -
John Kenneth Galbraith Economist -
Joan Robinson Economist -
David Ricardo Economist -
Thomas Malthus Scholar -
Milton Friedman Economist -
Irving Fisher Economist -
Ludwig von Mises Philosopher -
Paul Krugman Economist -
Joseph A. Schumpeter Economist