John Maynard Keynes Quotes

It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative.

Nothing matters except states of mind, chiefly our own.

Ideas shape the course of history.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal. (Letter to Duncan Grant)

In the long run, we are all dead.

The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.

Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for the reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.

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

The friends of gold will have to be extremely wise and moderate if they are to avoid a revolution.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

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.

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

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.