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John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Honesty, Integrity, Philosophy
"Stop the Madness". "The Globe and Mail" Newspaper, July 6, 2002.

People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.

John Kenneth Galbraith
People, Risk, Investing
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1977.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Funny, Witty, Men
Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Inspirational, Change, Sweet
John Kenneth Galbraith (2001). “The Essential Galbraith”, p.241, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).

John Kenneth Galbraith
Horse, Oats, Sparrows

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Business, Awards, Achievement
Annals of an Abiding Liberal ch. 6 (1979)

There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Two, Investing, Kind

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Money, Simple, Mind
"Money: Whence it came, where it went". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith, pp. 15, 29, 1975.

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Art, Freedom, Political
"Don't blame Alistair Darling. He's just the brush and bucket" by Andrew Rawnsley, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2008.

That one never need to look beyond the love of money for explanation of human behavior is one of the most jealously guarded simplification of our culture.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Looks, Needs, Culture
John Kenneth Galbraith (1968). “The New Industrial State”

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Astrology, Looks, Economic
"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Greed, Investing, Destruction
"The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 10, p. 293, 1977.

The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it's a failure of a knowledge of history.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Problem, Economics, Modern
Source: www.progressive.org

No solution [to the problem of poverty] is so effective as providing income to the poor. Whether in the form of food, housing, health services, education or money, income is an excellent antidote for deprivation. No truth has spawned so much ingenious evasion.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Income, Poverty, Problem

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Life, Motivational, Jobs

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Organization, Political, Majority
The Guardian, July 28, 1989.

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Acceptance, People, Rejection
John Kenneth Galbraith (1997). “The Great Crash, 1929”, p.171, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy — what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Horse, Oats, Sides
"Recession Economics". New York Review of Books, Volume 29, Number 1, February 04, 1982.

Economics exists to make astrology look respectable.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Astrology, Looks, Investing

There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Love, Political, Majority
The Guardian, May 23, 1992.

The huge capacity to purchase submission that goes with any large sum of money, well, this we have. This is a power of which we should all be aware.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Submission, Should, Capacity
"Quest for Peace: an Introduction". Book by John Whiteley, 1986.

I am worried about our tendency to over invest in things and under invest in people.

John Kenneth Galbraith
People, Worried, Tendencies

Nothing so denies a person liberty as the total absence of money.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Liberty, Absence, Deny
Source: www.progressive.org

I am not quite sure what the advantage is in having a few more dollars to spend if the air is too dirty to breathe, the water too polluted to drink, the commuters are losing out in the struggle to get in and out of the city, the streets are filthy, and the schools so bad that the young perhaps wisely stay away, and the hoodlums roll citizens for some of the dollars they saved in the tax cut.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Dirty, Struggle, School

A wrong decision isn't forever; it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Loss, Decision, Forever
John Kenneth Galbraith (1981). “A life in our times: memoirs”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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