John Maynard Keynes Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from John Maynard Keynes on Wise Famous Quotes.
I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.
The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.
Investment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
By this means the government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.
I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.
The principle objectives in life are love, the creation and enjoyment if aesthetic experience, the pursuit of knowledge. Love comes a long way first.
I am myself impressed by the great social advantages of increasing the stock of capital until it ceases to be scarce.
It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.
Perhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors.
Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
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.
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
The love of money as a possession ... will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity.
If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp.
Experience shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance.
When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.
There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.
Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant's profit, we have begun to change our civilization.
To suggest social action for the public good to the city London is like discussing The Origin of Species to a Bishop sixty years ago.
Gold is a relic from a time when government's were less trustworthy in these matters (currency debasement) than they are now.
Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.
It is generally agreed that casinos should, in the public interest, be inaccessible and expensive. And perhaps the same is true of Stock Exchanges.
It is investment, i.e. the increased production of material wealth in the shape of capital goods, which alone increases national wealth.
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
The duty of "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.
All the political parties alike have their origins in past ideas and not in new ideas and none more conspicuously so than the Marxists .
A speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.
But whilst there may be intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of land, there are no intrinsic reasons for the scarcity of capital.
If you owe your banker a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe your banker a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, - but generally to be obtained at your neighbor's expense.