John Maynard Keynes Quotes
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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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It is the long-term investor...who will in practice come in for the most criticism... For it is the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion...
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Economists must leave to Adam Smith alone the glory of the Quarto, must pluck the day, fling pamphlets into the wind, write always sub specie temporis, and achieve immortality by accident, if at all.
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There were endless possibilities, not out of reach.
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Economic privation proceeds by easy stages, and so long as men suffer it patiently the outside world cares little.
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Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
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When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.
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Gold is a relic from a time when government's were less trustworthy in these matters currency debasement than they are now.
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Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement.
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I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
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I wish I'd drunk more champagne.
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For each individual it is a great advantage to retain the rights over the fruits of his labour even though he must put off the enjoyment of them. His personal wealth is thus increased. For that is what wealth is,-command of the right to postponed consumption.
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But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future.
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The central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.
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The duty of 'saving' became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.
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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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If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.
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The biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones.
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Well, when I get new information, I rethink my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?
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Experience shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance.
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Nothing can preserve the integrity of contact between individuals, except a discretionary authority in the state to revise what has become intolerable. The powers of uninterrupted usury are too great. If the accretions of vested interests were to grow without mitigation for many generations, half the population would be no better than slaves to the other half.
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When the facts change, I change my mind.
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It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
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Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.