John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes
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Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.
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Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.
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In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings.
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Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
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In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.
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A banker need not be popular; indeed a good banker in a healthy capitalist society should probably be much disliked. People do not wish to trust their money to a hail-fellow-well-met but to a misanthrope who can say no.
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The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.
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Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.
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People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
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A businessman who reads Business Week is lost to fame. One who reads Proust is marked for greatness.
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But it can be laid down as a rule that those who speak most of liberty are least inclined to use it.
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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
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But there is still a considerable difference between a failure to do enough that is right and a determination to do much that is wrong.
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It's a rule worth having in mind. Income almost always flows along the same axis as power but in the opposite direction.
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One must always have in mind one simple fact - there is no literate population in the world that is poor, and there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor.
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Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
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Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego. It is well no doubt, to reflect on how much one owes to others.
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We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you're looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.
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Humor is richly rewarding to the person who employs it. It has some value in gaining and holding attention, but it has no persuasive value at all.
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A person buying ordinary products in a supermarket is in touch with his deepest emotions.
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The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.
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If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement.
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The Metropolis should have been aborted long before it became New York, London or Tokyo.
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The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.