John Maynard Keynes Quotes

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

When the facts change, I change my mind.

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back

The biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones.

The expected never happens; it is the unexpected always.

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.

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.

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.

The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.

The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher - in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light ofthe past for the purposes of the future

Ideas shape the course of history.

The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

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.

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.