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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

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John Maynard Keynes
Age: 62 †
Born: 1883
Born: June 5
Died: 1946
Died: April 21
Businessperson
Diplomat
Economist
Mathematician
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Politician
Professor
Lord Keynes
Baron Keynes of Tilton
Sight
Author
Mazes
Large
Symbols
Initial
Lose
Proportion
Pretentious
Rest
Mathematical
Initials
Loses
Investing
Assumptions
Unhelpful
Real
Economics
Recent
Imprecise
World
Allow
Complexity
Complexities
Mere
Assumption
Maze

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The Economic Problem...the problem of want and poverty and the economic struggle between classes and nations, is nothing but a frightful muddle, a transitory and unnecessary muddle.
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It is Enterprise which build and improves the world's possessions...If Enterprise is afoot, Wealth accumulates whatever may be happening to Thrift and if Enterprise is asleep, Wealth decays, whatever Thrift may be doing.
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If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.
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The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.
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If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
John Maynard Keynes
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I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
John Maynard Keynes
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The love of money as a possession...will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity.
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Galton's eccentric, sceptical, observing, flashing, cavalry-leader type of mind led him eventually to become the founder of the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.
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In a regime of Free Trade and free economic intercourse it would be of little consequence that iron lay on one side of a political frontier, and labour, coal, and blast furnaces on the other. But as it is, men have devised ways to impoverish themselves and one another and prefer collective animosities to individual happiness.
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Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
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The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war, could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably.
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Once doubt begins it spreads rapidly.
John Maynard Keynes
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It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between the truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability.
John Maynard Keynes
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Should government refrain from regulation (taxation), the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud can no longer be concealed.
John Maynard Keynes
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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
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The engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit.
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When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.
John Maynard Keynes
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What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!
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It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
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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.
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