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I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble - until the day of disaster.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Foresight is an imperfect thing - all prevision in economics is imperfect.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
'Poverty' Pitt exclaimed 'is no disgrace but it is damned annoying.' In the contemporary United States it is not annoying but it is a disgrace.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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A businessman who reads Business Week is lost to fame. One who reads Proust is marked for greatness.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
While it will be desirable to achieve planned results, it will be even more important to avoid unplanned disasters.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The Metropolis should have been aborted long before it became New York, London or Tokyo.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
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.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
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.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Power is as power does.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
No one was responsible for the great Wall Street crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of free choice and decision of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Only in very recent times has the average man been a source of savings.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The pioneering instrument of reform was the Bank of England. Of all institutions concerned with economics none has for so long enjoyed such prestige. It is, in all respects, to money as St. Peter's is to Faith.
John Kenneth Galbraith -
The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations... But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.
John Kenneth Galbraith