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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
World
Allow
Complexity
Complexities
Mere
Assumption
Maze
Sight
Author
Mazes
Large
Symbols
Initial
Lose
Proportion
Pretentious
Rest
Mathematical
Initials
Loses
Investing
Assumptions
Unhelpful
Real
Economics
Recent
Imprecise

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Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo ! There is something about these three figures to evoke more than ordinary sentiments from us their children in the spirit.
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It is generally agreed that casinos should, in the public interest, be inaccessible and expensive. And perhaps the same is true of Stock Exchanges.
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Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement.
John Maynard Keynes
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The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
John Maynard Keynes
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...By combining a popular hatred of the class of entrepreneurs with the blow already given to social security by the violent and arbitrary disturbance of contract,... governments are fast rendering impossible a continuance of the social and economic order of the nineteenth century.
John Maynard Keynes
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The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse but to do those things which at present are not done at all.
John Maynard Keynes
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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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How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeois and the intelligentsia who, with whatever faults, are the quality in life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement?
John Maynard Keynes
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Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
John Maynard Keynes
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It is impossible that the intention of the entrepreneur who has borrowed in order to increase investment can become effective (except in substitution for investment by other entrepreneurs which would have occurred otherwise) at a faster rate than the public decide to increase their savings
John Maynard Keynes
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When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.
John Maynard Keynes
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There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
John Maynard Keynes
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Government machinery has been described as a marvelous labor saving device which enables ten men to do the work of one.
John Maynard Keynes
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Those, who are strongly wedded to what I shall call 'the classical theory', will fluctuate, I expect, between a belief that I am quite wrong and a belief that I am saying nothing new. It is for others to determine if either of these or the third alternative is right.
John Maynard Keynes
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This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
John Maynard Keynes
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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.
John Maynard Keynes
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The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.
John Maynard Keynes
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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.
John Maynard Keynes
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I wish I'd drunk more champagne.
John Maynard Keynes
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It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone, particularly in economics.
John Maynard Keynes