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If it is dangerous to suppose that government is always right, it will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people suppose that it is always wrong.
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
Wrong
Government
Awkward
Right
Sooner
Always
Suppose
People
Administration
Later
Dangerous
Public
More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Nostalgia combines regularly with manifest respectability to give credence to old error as opposed to new truth.
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The seminar in economic theory conducted by Hayek at the L.S.E. in the 1930s was attended, it came to seem, by all of the economists of my generation - Nicky Kaldor , Thomas Balogh, L. K. Jah, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, the list could be indefinitely extended. The urge to participate (and correct Hayek) was ruthlessly competitive.
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A businessman who reads Business Week is lost to fame. One who reads Proust is marked for greatness.
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I predict, not because I know, but because I'm asked.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Conscience is better served by a myth.
John Kenneth Galbraith
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.
John Kenneth Galbraith
What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.
John Kenneth Galbraith
There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.
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Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.
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I've been writing a book called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. I published part of it already in The Progressive (Free Market Fraud, January 1999). But I've been interrupted these last few months. It deals with all of the things we do, in an innocent way, to cover up the truth.
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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.
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It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
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I've become accustomed to supporting politicians who are more conservative than I am. This is not entirely a surprise.
John Kenneth Galbraith
War remains the decisive human failure.
John Kenneth Galbraith
No one was responsible for the great Wall Street crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of free choice and decision of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards.
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