Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.
John Maynard Keynes
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.
John Maynard Keynes
Men will not always die quietly.
John Maynard Keynes
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.
John Maynard Keynes
It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens
John Maynard Keynes
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead
John Maynard Keynes
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
John Maynard Keynes
Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
John Maynard Keynes
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
John Maynard Keynes
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes
Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
John Maynard Keynes
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes
I do not know which makes a man more conservative – to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
John Maynard Keynes
I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
John Maynard Keynes
Ideas shape the course of history.
John Maynard Keynes
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
John Maynard Keynes
If I owe you a pound, I have a problem; but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours.
John Maynard Keynes
In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes
It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens
John Maynard Keynes
It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
John Maynard Keynes
It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.
John Maynard Keynes
Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.
John Maynard Keynes
Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
John Maynard Keynes
Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.
John Maynard Keynes
Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.
John Maynard Keynes
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
John Maynard Keynes
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is 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.
John Maynard Keynes
The biggest problem is not to let people accept new ideas, but to let them forget the old ones.
John Maynard Keynes
The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.
John Maynard Keynes
The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.
John Maynard Keynes
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
John Maynard Keynes
The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
John Maynard Keynes
Lenin was right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
John Maynard Keynes
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. I do not know which makes a man more conservative-to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
John Maynard Keynes
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
John Maynard Keynes
The love of money as a possession – as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life – will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propens
John Maynard Keynes
The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas
John Maynard Keynes
The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.
John Maynard Keynes
There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
John Maynard Keynes
They [parliament] are a lot of hard-faced men who look as if they had done very well out of the war.
John Maynard Keynes
When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.
John Maynard Keynes
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
John Maynard Keynes
