Explore Quotes by John Maynard Keynes

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.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

But my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn't you argue the other side?" He said, "That's true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do?

The numeric system was invented to help man to put order in the chaos of the world.

I am trying to re-shape and improve my central position.

Conservatism leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal.

If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.

Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians.

We will not have any more crashes in our time.

What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!

The power to become habituated to his surroundings and therefore to no longer be grateful for what is good in it is a marked characteristic of mankind and needs to be fought against if a person is to be happy.

Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.

I feel no shame at being found still owning a share when the bottom of the market comes…I would go much further than that. I should say that it is from time to time the duty of a serious investor to accept the depreciation of his holdings with equanimity and without reproaching himself. … An investor…should be aiming primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these.

Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget.

Experience shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance.

It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence.

There is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world.

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.

The introduction of a substantial Government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available,with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation in the United States.

Thus, the weight of my criticism is directed against the inadequacy of the theoretical foundations of the laissez-faire doctrine upon which I was brought up and for many years I taught