John Maynard Keynes Quotes
-
If I am right in supposing it to be comparatively easy to make capital-goods so abundant that the marginal efficiency of capital is zero, this may be the most sensible way of gradually getting rid of many of the objectionable features of capitalism.
-
Ideas shape the course of history.
-
One's knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.
-
I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
-
There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
-
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
-
There is no intrinsic reason for the scarcity of capital.
-
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.
-
In peace time, that is to say, the size of the cake depends on the amount of work done. But in war time the size of the cake is fixed. If we work harder, we can fight better. But we must not consume more.
-
The great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists.
-
For my part 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 it is in many ways extremely objectionable.
-
The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.
-
I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant's profit, we have begun to change our civilization.
-
Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
-
If you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy.
-
It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
-
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 accompli.
-
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
-
The mechanism of reaching equilibrium by means of a rising cost of living, which is vainly pursued by a rising level of wages, will be described in the next chapter. But it is admitted on all hands that this is the worst possible solution.
-
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.
-
It would be foolish, in forming our expectations, to attach great weight to matters which are very uncertain.