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Economics is not an exact science.

John Kenneth Galbraith

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John Kenneth Galbraith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1908
Born: October 15
Died: 2006
Died: April 29
Diplomat
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
University Teacher
John K. Galbraith
Exact
Economics
Science

More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

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There is an enormous thrust in our time to have a simple answer. And that simple answer is that all depends on Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. And Alan, who is an old acquaintance of mine, is a marvelous performer in the impression he gives of enormously great perception.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The modern corporation must manufacture not only goods but the desire for the goods it manufactures.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Educators have yet to realize how deeply the industrial system is dependent upon them.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence when originality is taken to be a mark of instability and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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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.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Emancipation of belief is the most formidable of the tasks of reform and the one on which all else depends.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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American university presidents are a nervous breed I have never thought well of them as a class.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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It was not hard to persuade people that the market was sound as always in such times they asked only that the dispiriting voices of doubt be muted and that there should be tolerably frequent expressions of confidence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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A drastic reduction in weapons competition following a general release from the commitment to the Cold War would be sharply in conflict with the needs of the industrial system.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The questions that are beyond the reach of economics-the beauty, dignity, pleasure and durability of life-may be inconvenient but they are important.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The family which takes it mauve and cerise, air conditioned, power-steered, and power braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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In fact, the wage-price spiral is the functional counterpart of unemployment. The latter occurs when there is insufficient demand the spiral operates when there is too much and also,unfortunately, when there is just enough.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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If you're rich you can buy books. If you're poor, you need a library.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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[Franklin Delano] Roosevelt was the central world figure in the two great disasters of this century - the Great Depression and World War II. By contrast, JFK came in relatively peaceful, agreeable times.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Writing is a long and lonesome business back of the problems in thought and composition hover always the awful questions: Is this the page that shows the empty shell? Is it here and now that they find me out?
John Kenneth Galbraith
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
John Kenneth Galbraith