Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Change comes not from men and women changing their minds, but from the change from one generation to the next.
Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.
Much of the world's work, it has been said, is done by men who do not feel quite well. Marx is a case in point.
I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.
Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences.
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
Few things are as immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by whichthey have once won office.
The oldest [John Kenneth] Galbraith rule is that when you hear that a new era has dawned, you should take cover.
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
Nostalgia combines regularly with manifest respectability to give credence to old error as opposed to new truth.
In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.
In the world of minor lunacy the behaviour of both the utterly rational and the totally insane seems equally odd.
Economists are economical, among other things, of ideas; most make those of their graduate days do for a lifetime.
Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
While it will be desirable to achieve planned results, it will be even more important to avoid unplanned disasters.
The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.
The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.
Ideas do not respect national frontiers, and this is especially so where language and other traditions are in common.
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
I've become accustomed to supporting politicians who are more conservative than I am. This is not entirely a surprise.
There is an old saying, or should be, that it is a wise economist who recognizes the scope of his own generalizations.
There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.
It's a rule worth having in mind. Income almost always flows along the same axis as power but in the opposite direction.
This is a world inhabited not by people who have to be persuaded to believe but by people who want an excuse to believe.
The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it's a failure of a knowledge of history.
If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to "trickle down" economics).
According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
It is not the individual's right to buy that is being protected. Rather, it is the seller's right to manage the individual.
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
Economists, on the whole, think well of what they do themselves and much less well of what their professional colleagues do.
It takes a certain brashness to attack the accepted economic legendsbut noneat all toperpetuatethem. So theyare perpetuated.
Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths.
Faced with having to change our views or prove that there is no need to do so, most of us immediately get busy on the proof.
It is a commonplace of modern technology that problems have solutions before there is knowledge of how they are to be solved.
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower.
The massive reduction in risk that is inherent in the development of the modern corporation has been far from fully appreciated.
The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems.
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
One of the best ways of avoiding necessary and even urgent tasks is to seem to be busily employed on things that are already done.
Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
There is wonder and a certain wicked pleasure in these giddy ascents and terrible falls, especially as they happen to other people.
The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.
It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
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.
In 1929 the discovery of the wonders of the geometric series struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel.
Wisdom... is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the man who asserts it and the manner of its assertion.
Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell.