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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

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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
Alone
Long
Believe
Temporarily
Things
Astonishing
Thinking
Foolish
Economics
Particularly
Thinks

More quotes by 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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[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.
John Maynard Keynes
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When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
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.
John Maynard Keynes
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Perhaps a day might come when there would be at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors.
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!
John Maynard Keynes
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The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.
John Maynard Keynes
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It is the long-term investor...who will in practice come in for the most criticism... For it is the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion
John Maynard Keynes
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All the political parties alike have their origins in past ideas and not in new ideas and none more conspicuously so than the Marxists .
John Maynard Keynes
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Everything is always decided for reasons other than the real merits of the case
John Maynard Keynes
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Like all his type, Newton was wholly aloof from women.
John Maynard Keynes
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Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.
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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The central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.
John Maynard Keynes
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One blames politicians, not for inconsistency but for obstinacy. They are the interpreters, not the masters, of our fate. It is their job, in fact, to register the fact accompli.
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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A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
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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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes
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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