46 John Maynard Keynes Quotes (ECONOMIST)

Top 10 Most Famous John Maynard Keynes Quotes (BEST)

“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.”
John Maynard Keynes

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

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. — 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.

“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

By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft. — By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the **wealth** of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.

Experience shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance. — **Experience** shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance.

“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

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward. — The avoidance of **taxes** is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.

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

5 Motivational John Maynard Keynes Quotes on Becoming a Skilled Investor

“If farming were to be organized like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.”
John Maynard Keynes

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future. — The social object of skilled **investment** should be to defeat the dark forces of **time** and ignorance which envelope our **future**.

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others. — **Successful** investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

“The central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.”
John Maynard Keynes

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. — 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**.

7 Wise John Maynard Keynes Quotes To Live By (WISDOM)

“When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. 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 propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.”
John Maynard Keynes

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

When the facts change, I change my mind.

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

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.

The expected never happens; it is the unexpected always.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

10 John Maynard Keynes Quotes that Will Make You Think

“Too large a proportion of recent “mathematical” economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols.”
John Maynard Keynes

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

“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

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

“Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.”
John Maynard Keynes

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.

The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society. — The **businessman** is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. — A **study** of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.

Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.

2 John Maynard Keynes Quotes on Men

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past. — I do not know which makes a man more conservative – to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

2 John Maynard Keynes Quotes on How To Become a Master Economist

“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 of the past for the purposes of the future.”
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. — If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as **humble**, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

2 John Maynard Keynes Quotes on Markets

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

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

2 John Maynard Keynes Quotes About the Government

“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

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

3 John Maynard Keynes Quotes on Capitalism

“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.”
John Maynard Keynes

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 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