Quote

I do the best with what exists.

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
Exists
Best

More quotes by 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
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
No ethic is as ethical as the work ethic.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Originality is something that is easily exaggerated, especially by authors contemplating their own work.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
It has been the acknowledged right of every Marxist scholar to read into Marx the particular meaning that he himself prefers and to treat all others with indignation.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Nothing is more portable than rich people and their money
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Complexity and obscurity have professional value - they are the academic equivalents of apprenticeship rules in the building trades. They exclude the outsiders, keep down the competition, preserve the image of a privileged or priestly class. The man who makes things clear is a scab. He is criticized less for his clarity than for his treachery.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Economic theory is the most prestigious subject of instruction and study. Agricultural economics, labor economics and marketing are lower caste fields of study.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
There are a significant number of learned men and women who hold that any successful effort to make ideas lively, intelligible and interesting is a manifestation of deficient scholarship. This is the fortress behind which the minimally coherent regularly find refuge.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The notion that you would initiate a new product without preparing the way by persuasion and advertising and salesmanship is fantastic. It's an integral part of the system.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Those days [of the Vietnam War] you couldn't get on a bus going to the South without expecting a riot over something or the other. All of that has disappeared thanks to Lyndon Johnson.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
The inborn instability of capitalism has been part of the history of the system for several hundred years.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast - even the English can't do it.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
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
Image
Ralph [ Nader] is an old friend of mine, and he does a useful job in displaying a position.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Only men of considerable vanity write books consistently therewith, I worried lest the world were exchanging an irreplaceable author for a more easily purchased diplomat.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
Inflation does not lubricate trade but by rescuing traders from their errors of optimism or stupidity.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Image
THE GENIUS of the industrial system lies in its organized use of capital and technology. This is made possible, as we have duly seen, by extensively replacing the market with planning.
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