Quotes from John Maynard Keynes

A valuation, which is established as the outcome of the mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals is liable to change violently as the result of a sudden fluctuation of opinion due to factors which really do not make much difference . . . since there will be no strong roots of conviction to hold it steady.

In the long run we are all dead

The same rule of self-destructive financial calculation governs every walk of life. We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the un-appropriated splendors of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.

saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth

All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer.

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.

It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions

El día en que la abundancia de capital interfiera con la de producción puede aplazarse en la medida en que los millonarios encuentren satisfacción en edificar poderosas mansiones para encerrarse en ellas mientras vivan y pirámides para albergarse después de muertos, o, arrepintiéndose de sus pecados levanten catedrales y funden monasterios o misiones en el extranjero.

He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty - just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz.

he, indeed, who gave fewest pledges to Fortune, has yet suffered her heaviest visitations.

If .. spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.

Gold is a relic from a time when government's were less trustworthy in these matters (currency debasement) than they are now.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future .

In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.

The principle objectives in life are love, the creation and enjoyment if aesthetic experience, the pursuit of knowledge. Love comes a long way first.

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, — but generally to be obtained at your neighbor's expense.

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.

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.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.