John Maynard Keynes Quotes

“But my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn't you argue the other side?" He said, "That's true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do?”

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

“Ideas shape the course of history.”

“If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.”

“In the long run we are all dead.”

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”

“It is dangerous to apply to the future inductive arguments based on past experience, unless one can distinguish the broad reasons why past experience was what it was.”

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”

“Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.”

“The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.”

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.”

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

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

“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.”

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

“When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.”

“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”