Quote

Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Long
National
Legislature
Among
Observers
Youth
Organs
Modern
Superficial
Public
Unfair
Senility
United
Rewards
Fetish
Making
Administration
Uniquely
States
Private
Criticized

More quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

Image
Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance with which they cannot contend.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
American university presidents are a nervous breed I have never thought well of them as a class.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Economic stimulation that works through the increased outlays to the affluent has, inevitably, an aspect of soundness and sanity that is lacking in expenditure on behalf of the undeserving poor.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Talk of revolution is one of avoiding reality.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
I accept the global complex and global trade more than do some of my liberal colleagues because I consider this a wise alternative to national tension and conflict.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
It is my guiding confession that I believe the greatest error in economics is in seeing the economy as a stable, immutable structure.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
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
Image
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.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
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
Image
In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading a syndicate that was driving the market down.
John Kenneth Galbraith