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A Sound Banker, Alas, Is Not One Who Foresees Danger And Avoids It, But One Who, When He Is Ruined, Is Ruined In A Conventional And Orthodox Way Along With His Fellows, So That No One Can Really Blame Him. It Is Necessarily Part Of The Business Of A Banker To Maintain Appearances, And To Confess A Conventional Respectability, Which Is More Than Human. Life-long Practices Of This Kind Make Them The Most Romantic And The Least Realistic Of Men.
-John Maynard Keynes
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A Sound Banker, Alas,

John Maynard Keynes
A Sound Banker, Alas, Is Not One Who Foresees Danger And Avoids It, But One Who, When He Is Ruined, Is Ruined In A Conventional And Orthodox Way Along With His Fellows, So That No One Can Really Blame Him. It Is Necessarily Part Of The Business Of A Banker To Maintain Appearances, And To Confess A Conventional Respectability, Which Is More Than Human. Life-long Practices Of This Kind Make Them The Most Romantic And The Least Realistic Of Men.
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Men
Practice
Long
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If I Am Right In Supposing It To Be Comparatively Easy To Make Capital-goods So Abundant That The Marginal Efficiency Of Capital Is Zero, This May Be The Most Sensible Way Of Gradually Getting Rid Of Many Of The Objectionable Features Of Capitalism.
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I Find Myself More And More Relying For A Solution Of Our Problems On The Invisible Hand Which I Tried To Eject From Economic Thinking Twenty Years Ago.
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God Has Arrived. I Met Him On The 5:15 Train.
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If You Owe Your Bank A Hundred Pounds, You Have A Problem. But If You Owe A Million, It Has.
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The Great Events Of History Are Often Due To Secular Changes In The Growth Of Population And Other Fundamental Economic Causes, Which, Escaping By Their Gradual Character The Notice Of Contemporary Observers, Are Attributed To The Follies Of Statesmen Or The Fanaticism Of Atheists .
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Character
Escaping
When The Accumulation Of Wealth Is No Longer Of High Social Importance, There Will Be Great Changes In The Code Of Morals. We Shall Be Able To Rid Ourselves Of Many Of The Pseudo-moral Principles Which Have Hag-ridden Us For Two Hundred Years, By Which We Have Exulted Some Of The Most Distasteful Of Human Qualities Into The Highest Virtues.
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When The Accumulation Of Wealth Is No Longer Of High Social Importance, There Will Be Great Changes In The Code Of Morals.
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Doubt
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The Love Of Money As A Possession-as Distinguished From The Love Of Money As A Means To The Enjoyments And Realities Of Life-will Be Recognized For What It Is, A Somewhat Disgusting Morbidity, One Of Those Semi-criminal, Semi-pathological Propensities Which One Hands Over With A Shudder To The Specialists In Mental Disease
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Worldly Wisdom Teaches That It Is Better For Reputation To Fail Conventionally Than To Succeed Unconventionally.
Succeed
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Everything Is Always Decided For Reasons Other Than The Real Merits Of The Case
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The Immense Accumulations Of Fixed Capital Which, To The Great Benefit Of Mankind, Were Built Up During The Half Century Before The War, Could Never Have Come About In A Society Where Wealth Was Divided Equitably.
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It Is Ideas, Not Vested Interests, Which Are Dangerous For Good Or Evil.
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The Division Of The Spoils Between The Victors Will Also Provide Employment For A Powerful Office, Whose Doorsteps The Greedy Adventurers And Jealous Concession Hunters Of Twenty Or Thirty Nations Will Crowd And Defile.
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It Is Astonishing What Foolish Things One Can Temporarily Believe If One Thinks Too Long Alone, Particularly In Economics.
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Professional Investment May Be Likened To Those Newspaper Competitions In Which The Competitors Have To Pick Out The Six Prettiest Faces From A Hundred Photographs, The Prize Being Awarded To The Competitor Whose Choice Most Nearly Corresponds To The Average Preferences Of The Competitors As A Whole.
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Ideas, Knowledge, Art, Hospitality, Travel - These Are Things Which Should In Their Nature Be International. But Let Goods Be Homespun Whenever It Is Reasonably And Conveniently Possible And Above All Let Finance Be Primarily National.
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They Offer Me Neither Food Nor Drink - Intellectual Nor Spiritual Consolation... [conservatism] Leads Nowhere; It Satisfies No Ideal; It Conforms To No Intellectual Standard, It Is Not Safe, Or Calculated To Preserve From The Spoilers That Degree Of Civilization Which We Have Already Attained.
Spiritual
Civilization
Intellectual
A Sound Banker, Alas, Is Not One Who Foresees Danger And Avoids It, But One Who, When He Is Ruined, Is Ruined In A Conventional Way Along With His Fellows, So That No One Can Really Blame Him.
Bankers
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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?
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The Inhabitant Of London Could Order By Telephone, Sipping His Morning Tea In Bed, The Various Products Of The Whole Earth -- He Could At The Same Time And By The Same Means Adventure His Wealth In The Natural Resources And New Enterprise Of Any Quarter Of The World -- He Could Secure Forthwith, If He Wished, Cheap And Comfortable Means Of Transit To Any Country Or Climate Without Passport Or Other Formality.
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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.
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The Master-economist Must Possess A Rare Combination Of Gifts. He Must Reach A High Standard In Several Different Directions And Must Combine Talents Not Often Found Together. He Must Be Mathematician, Historian, Statesman, Philosopher - In Some Degree. He Must Understand Symbols And Speak In Words. He Must Contemplate The Particular In Terms Of The General, And Touch Abstract And Concrete In The Same Flight Of Thought. He Must Study The Present In The Light Ofthe Past For The Purposes Of The Future
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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.
Men
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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.
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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.
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Gold Is A Relic From A Time When Government's Were Less Trustworthy In These Matters (currency Debasement) Than They Are Now.
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Education: The Inculcation Of The Incomprehensible Into The Indifferent By The Incompetent.
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I Don't Feel The Least Humble Before The Vastness Of The Heavens.
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An Investor Who Proposes To Ignore Near-term Market Fluctuations Needs Greater Resources For Safety And Must Not Operate On So Large A Scale, If At All, With Borrowed Money.
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I Can't Remember My Telephone Number, But I Know It Was In The High Numbers.
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When The Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
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I Am Trying To Re-shape And Improve My Central Position.
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It Is Investment, I.e. The Increased Production Of Material Wealth In The Shape Of Capital Goods, Which Alone Increases National Wealth.
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In This Autumn Of 1919, In Which I Write, We Are At The Dead Season Of Our Fortunes.
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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.
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I Should Have Drunk More Champagne.
Should Have
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There Is No Harm In Being Sometimes Wrong - Especially If One Is Promptly Found Out.
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The Love Of Money As A Possession...will Be Recognised For What It Is, A Somewhat Disgusting Morbidity.
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Like Odysseus, The President Looked Wiser When He Was Seated.
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The Disruptive Powers Of Excessive National Fecundity May Have Played A Greater Part In Bursting The Bonds Of Convention Than Either The Power Of Ideas Or The Errors Of Autocracy.
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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 .
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Investing Is An Activity Of Forecasting The Yield Over The Life Of The Asset; Speculation Is The Activity Of Forecasting The Psychology Of The Market.
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Newton Was Not The First Of The Age Of Reason, He Was The Last Of The Magicians.
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Lasts
It Is Enterprise Which Build And Improves The World's Possessions...if Enterprise Is Afoot, Wealth Accumulates Whatever May Be Happening To Thrift; And If Enterprise Is Asleep, Wealth Decays, Whatever Thrift May Be Doing.
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May
Newton Was A Judaic Monotheist Of The School Of Maimonides
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To Our Generation Einstein Has Been Made To Become A Double Symbol - A Symbol Of The Mind Travelling In The Cold Regions Of Space, And A Symbol Of The Brave And Generous Outcast, Pure In Heart And Cheerful Of Spirit.
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Markets Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent.
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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.
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When Somebody Persuades Me I Am Wrong, I Change My Mind.
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A Sound Banker, Alas, Is Not One Who Foresees Danger And Avoids It, But One Who, When He Is Ruined, Is Ruined In A Conventional And Orthodox Way Along With His Fellows, So That No One Can Really Blame Him. It Is Necessarily Part Of The Business Of A Banker To Maintain Appearances, And To Confess A Conventional Respectability, Which Is More Than Human. Life-long Practices Of This Kind Make Them The Most Romantic And The Least Realistic Of Men.
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Practice
Long
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
Eye
Average
Essence
The Principle Objectives In Life Are Love, The Creation And Enjoyment If Aesthetic Experience, The Pursuit Of Knowledge. Love Comes A Long Way First.
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Way
If We Aim Deliberately At The Impoverishment Of Central Europe, Vengeance, I Dare Predict, Will Not Limp.
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Vengeance
Dare
Capitalism Is The Astounding Belief That The Most Wickedest Of Men Will Do The Most Wickedest Of Things For The Greatest Good Of Everyone.
Fun
Business
Men
The Ideas Of Economists And Political Philosophers, Both When They Are Right And When They Are Wrong, Are More Powerful Than Is Generally Understood. Indeed, The World Is Ruled By Little Else.
Powerful
Freedom
Ideas
Perhaps It Is Historically True That No Order Of Society Ever Perishes Save By Its Own Hand.
Hands
Order
Should Government Refrain From Regulation (taxation), The Worthlessness Of The Money Becomes Apparent And The Fraud Can No Longer Be Concealed.
Government
Taxation
Regulation
Dangerous Acts Can Be Done Safely In A Community Which Thinks And Feels Rightly, Which Would Be The Way To Hell If They Were Executed By Those Who Think And Feel Wrongly.
Thinking
Community
Would Be
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Running
Exhausted
Century
This Siren, This Goat-footed Bard, This Half Human Visitor To Our Age The Hag-ridden And Enchanted Woods Of Celtic Antiquity. One Catches In His Company That Flavour Of Final Purposelessness, Inner Responsibility, Existence Outside Or Away From Our Saxon Good And Evil, Mixed With Cunning, Remorselessness, Love Of Power.
Responsibility
Evil
Age
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Community
Liquid
Doctrine
In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic.
Gold
Standards
Relics
The Engine Which Drives Enterprise Is Not Thrift, But Profit.
Profit
Enterprise
Thrift
A Conventional 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 Do Not Really Make Much Difference To The Prospective Yield; Since There Will Be No Strong Roots Of Conviction To Hold It Steady.
Strong
Roots
Differences
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.
Learning
Power
History
Never In History Was There A Method Devised Of Such Efficacy For Setting Each Country's Advantage At Variance With Its Neighbours' As The International Gold (or, Formerly, Silver) Standard.
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Investing
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.
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I Am Myself Impressed By The Great Social Advantages Of Increasing The Stock Of Capital Until It Ceases To Be Scarce.
Social
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Scarce
[silvio] Gesell's Chiefwork Is Written In Cool And Scientific Terms, Although It Is Run Through By A More Passionate And Charged Devotion To Social Justice Than Many Think Fit For A Scholar. I Believe That The Future Will Learn More From The Spirit Of Gesell Then From That Of Marx.
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Competition
Liberty
Pyramid-building, Earthquakes, Even Wars May Serve To Increase Wealth, If The Education Of Our Statesmen On The Principles Of The Classical Economics Stands In The Way Of Anything Better.
War
Earthquakes
Pyramids
In The Long Run We Are All Dead.
Funny
Death
Running
How Long Will It Be Necessary To Pay City Men So Entirely Out Of Proportion To What Other Servants Of Society Commonly Receive For Performing Social Services Not Less Useful Or Difficult?
Men
Cities
Long
Galton's Eccentric, Sceptical, Observing, Flashing, Cavalry-leader Type Of Mind Led Him Eventually To Become The Founder Of The Most Important, Significant And, I Would Add, Genuine Branch Of Sociology Which Exists, Namely Eugenics.
Eugenics
Leader
Mind
I Believe Myself To Be Writing A Book On Economic Theory Which Will Largely Revolutionize - Not, I Suppose, At Once But In The Course Of The Next Ten Years - The Way The World Thinks About Economic Problems.
Believe
Book
Writing
I Am Sure That The Power Of Vested Interests Is Vastly Exaggerated Compared With The Gradual Encroachment Of Ideas.
Ideas
Encroachment
Interest
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.
Struggle
Class
Want
When My Information Changes, I Alter My Conclusions. What Do You Do, Sir?
Information
Conclusion
It Is Not The Ownership Of The Instruments Of Production Which It Is Important For The State To Assume. If The State Is Able To Determine The Aggregate Amount Of Resources Devoted To Augmenting The Instruments And The Basic Rate Of Reward To Those Who Own Them, It Will Have Accomplished All That Is Necessary. Moreover, The Necessary Measures Of Socialization Can Be Introduced Gradually And Without A Break In The General Traditions Of Society.
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Important
Politics
The Political Problem Of Mankind Is To Combine Three Things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice And Individual Liberty.
Justice
Political
Liberty
There Is Nothing So Disastrous As A Rational Investment Policy In An Irrational World.
Investing
World
Investment
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?
Quality
Advancement
Mud
He Had One Illusion - France; And One Disillusion - Mankind, Including Frenchmen.
France
Illusion
Economics
It's Not Bringing In The New Ideas That's So Hard; It's Getting Rid Of The Old Ones.
Ideas
New Ideas
Hard
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.
Running
Investing
Taxation
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.
Taken
Animal
Average
Words Ought To Be A Little Wild, For They Are The Assault Of Thoughts On The Unthinking.
Inspirational
Business
Past
Economic Privation Proceeds By Easy Stages, And So Long As Men Suffer It Patiently The Outside World Cares Little.
Men
Long
Suffering
The Difficulty Lies, Not In The New Ideas, But In Escaping The Old Ones, Which Ramify, For Those Brought Up As Most Of Us Have Been, Into Every Corner Of Our Minds.
Education
Fear
Lying
By A Continuing Process Of Inflation, Government Can Confiscate, Secretly And Unobserved, An Important Part Of The Wealth Of Their Citizens.
Money
Power
Government
Newton Was Not The First Of The Age Of Reason. He Was The Last Of The Magicians, The Last Of The Babylonians And Sumerians, The Last Great Mind That Looked Out On The Visible And Intellectual World With The Same Eyes As Those Who Began To Build Our Intellectual Inheritance Rather Less Than 10,000 Years Ago.
Eye
Science
Years
When The Final Result Is Expected To Be A Compromise, It Is Often Prudent To Start From An Extreme Position.
Finals
Prudent
Compromise
Investment Based On Genuine Long-term Expectations Is So Difficult Today As To Be Scarcely Practicable.
Long
Expectations
Investing
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.
Real
Sight
Investing
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.
Philosophy
Book
Agreement
But The Dreams Of Designing Diplomats Do Not Always Prosper, And We Must Trust The Future .
Dream
Design
Diplomats
In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic. All Of Us, From The Governor Of The Bank Of England Downwards, Are Now Primarily Interested In Preserving The Stability Of Business, Prices, And Employment, And Are Not Likely, When The Choice Is Forced On Us, Deliberately To Sacrifice These To Outworn Dogma, Which Had Its Value Once, Of 3 Pounds, 17 Shill Ings, 10 1/2 Pence Per Ounce. Advocates Of The Ancient Standard Do Not Observe How Remote It Now Is From The Spirit And The Requirements Of The Age. A Regulated Nonmetallic Standard Has Slipped In Unnoticed. It Exists.
Sacrifice
Choices
Age
It Is The Duty Of The Long-term Investor To Endure Great Losses With Equanimity.
Loss
Long
Investing
I'd Rather Be Vaguely Right Than Precisely Wrong.
Economics
But Whilst There May Be Intrinsic Reasons For The Scarcity Of Land, There Are No Intrinsic Reasons For The Scarcity Of Capital.
Land
Scarcity
May
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.
Wise
Morning
Rain
To Suppose That Safety-first Consists In Having A Small Gamble In A Large Number Of Different Companies Where I Have No Information To Reach A Good Judgment, As Compared With A Substantial Stake In A Company Where One's Information Is Adequate, Strikes Me As A Travesty Of Investment Policy.
Numbers
Safety
Different
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.
Country
Jobs
Serious
As Time Goes On, I Get More And More Convinced That The Right Method In Investment Is To Put Fairly Large Sums Into Enterprises Which One Thinks One Knows Something About And In The Management Of Which One Thoroughly Believes. 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. . . . One's Knowledge And Experience Are Definitely Limited And There Are Seldom More Than Two Or Three Enterprises At Any Given Time In Which I Personally Feel Myself Entitled To Put Full Confidence.
Mistake
Believe
Thinking
If, However, A Government Refrains From Regulations And Allows Matters To Take Their Course, Essential Commodities Soon Attain A Level Of Price Out Of The Reach Of All But The Rich, The Worthlessness Of The Money Becomes Apparent, And The Fraud Upon The Public Can Be Concealed No Longer.
Money
Government
Deception
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.
Death
Running
Ocean
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.
Truth
Math
Degrees
If Economists Could Manage To Get Themselves Thought Of As Humble, Competent People On A Level With Dentists, That Would Be Splendid.
Humble
People
Would Be
The Book, As It Stands, Seems To Me To Be One Of The Most Frightful Muddles I Have Ever Read, With Scarcely A Sound Proposition In It Beginning With Page 45 [hayek Provided Historical Background Up To Page 45; After That Came His Theoretical Model], And Yet It Remains A Book Of Some Interest, Which Is Likely To Leave Its Mark On The Mind Of The Reader. It Is An Extraordinary Example Of How, Starting With A Mistake, A Remorseless Logician Can End Up In Bedlam.
Mistake
Book
Historical
The Boom, Not The Slump, Is The Right Time For Austerity At The Treasury.
Slumps
Investing
Austerity
The Right Remedy For The Trade Cycle Is Not To Be Found In Abolishing Booms And Thus Keeping Us Permanently In A Semi-slump; But In Abolishing Slumps And Thus Keeping Us Permanently In A Quasi-boom.
Business
Slumps
Found
I Expect To See The State, Which Is In A Position To Calculate The Marginal Efficiency Of Capital-goods On Long Views And On The Basis Of The General Social Advantage, Taking An Ever Greater Responsibility For Directly Organizing Investments.
Philosophy
Responsibility
Views
Nevertheless, If We Contemplate A Society With A Somewhat Stable Wage-unit, With National Characteristics Which Determine The Propensity To Consume And The Preference For Liquidity, And With A Monetary System Which Rigidly Links The Quantity Of Money To The Stock Of The Precious Metals, It Will Be Essential For The Maintenance Of Prosperity That The Authorities Should Pay Close Attention To The State Of The Balance Of Trade. For A Favourable Balance, Provided It Is Not Too Large, Will Prove Extremely Stimulating; Whilst An Unfavourable Balance May Soon Produce A State Of Persistent Depression.
Balance
Essentials
Attention
I Do Not Know Which Makes A Man More Conservative - To Know Nothing But The Present, Or Nothing But The Past.
Acceptance
Past
Men
Logic , Like Lyrical Poetry , Is No Employment For The Middle-aged
Employment
Logic
Lyrical
The Idea Behind Stamped Money Is Sound.
Ideas
Sound
Behinds
Well, When I Get New Information, I Rethink My Position. What, Sir, Do You Do With New Information?
Atheism
Information
Wells
The Atomic Hypothesis Which Had Worked So Splendidly In Physics Breaks Down In Psychics.
Psychics
Physics
Breaking Down
I Was Suffering From My Chronic Delusion That One Good Share Is Safer Than Ten Bad Ones, And I Am Always Forgetting That Hardly Anyone Else Shares This Particular Delusion.
Suffering
Forget
Share
One's Knowledge And Experience Are Definitely Limited And There Are Seldom More Than Two Or Three Enterprises At Any Given Time In Which I Personally Feel Myself Entitled To Put Full Confidence.
Two
Three
Investing
Most Men Love Money And Security More, And Creation And Construction Less, As They Get Older.
Love
Money
Men
Conservatism Leads Nowhere; It Satisfies No Ideal.
Wise
Conservatism
Ideals
For My Own Part, I Believe That There Is Social And Psychological Justification For Significant Inequalities Of Incomes And Wealth.
Wisdom
Believe
Income
The Difficulty Lies, Not In The New Ideas, But In Escaping From The Old Ones.
Inspirational
Change
Lying
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.
Long
Gains
Bears
I Believe That The Future Will Learn More From The Spirit Of Gesell Than From That Of Marx .
Believe
Spirit
I Believe
The Treasury Could Fill Old Bottles With Banknotes And Bury Them..and Leave It To Private Enterprises On Well-tried Principles Of Laissez-faire To Dig The Notes Up Again.
Principles
Bottles
Laissez Faire
Businessmen Have A Different Set Of Delusions From Politicians; And Need, Therefore, Different Handling. They Are, However, Much Milder Than Politicians, At The Same Time Allured And Terrified By The Glare Of Publicity....you Could Do Anything You Like With Them, If You Would Treat Them (even The Big Ones) Not As Wolves And Tigers, But As Domestic Animals By Nature, Even Though They Have Been Badly Brought Up And Not Trained As You Would Wish.
Animal
Wish
Different
A Study Of The History Of Opinion Is A Necessary Preliminary To The Emancipation Of The Mind.
History
Mind
Opinion
There Is No Subtler, No Surer Means Of Overturning The Existing Basis Of Society Than To Debauch The Currency.
Mean
Economics
Currency
The Glory Of The Nation You Love Is A Desirable End, — But Generally To Be Obtained At Your Neighbor's Expense.
Love Is
Glory
Neighbor
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.
Jobs
Fate
Politics
... A Speculator Is One Who Runs Risks Of Which He Is Aware And An Investor Is One Who Runs Risks Of Which He Is Unaware.
Running
Risk
Investing
So It Is Not An Accident That The Nazi Lads Vent A Particular Fury Against (einstein). He Does Truly Stand For What They Most Dislike, The Opposite Of The Blond Beast Intellectualist, Individualist, Supernationalist, Pacifist, Inky, Plump... How Should They Know The Glory Of The Free-ranging Intellect And Soft Objective Sympathy To Whom Money And Violence, Drink And Blood And Pomp, Mean Absolutely Nothing?
Mean
Blood
Opposites
I See, Therefore, The Rentier Aspect Of Capitalism As A Transitional Phase Which Will Disappear When It Has Done Its Work. And With The Disappearance Of Its Rentier Aspect Much Else In It Besides Will Suffer A Sea-change. It Will Be, Moreover, A Great Advantage Of The Order Of Events Which I Am Advocating, That The Euthanasia Of The Rentier, Of The Functionless Investor, Will Be Nothing Sudden, Merely A Gradual But Prolonged Continuance Of What We Have Seen Recently In Great Britain, And Will Need No Revolution.
Wisdom
Order
Sea
The Class War Will Find Me On The Side Of The Educated Bourgeoisie.
War
Class
Bourgeoisie
It Is Better That A Man Should Tyrannize Over His Bank Balance Than Over His Fellow-citizens.
Men
Democracy
Balance
Thus Those Reformers, Who Look For A Remedy By Creating Artificial Carrying-costs For The Money Through The Device Of Requiring Legal-tender Currency To Be Periodically Stamped At A Prescribed Cost In Order To Retain Its Quality As Money, Or In Analogous Ways, Have Been On The Right Track; And The Practical Value Of Their Proposals Deserves Consideration.
Order
Creating
Track
Lenin Is Said To Have Declared That The Best Way To Destroy The Capitalist System Was 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. By This Method They Not Only Confiscate, But They Confiscate Arbitrarily; And, While The Process Impoverishes Many, It Actually Enriches Some. The Sight Of This Arbitrary Rearrangement Of Riches Strikes Not Only At Security, But At Confidence In The Equity Of The Existing Distribution Of Wealth.
Government
Sight
Important
It Is A Good Thing To Make Mistakes So Long As You're Found Out Quickly.
Mistake
Long
Good Things
Once We Allow Ourselves To Be Disobedient To The Test Of An Accountant's Profit, We Have Begun To Change Our Civilization.
Civilization
Tests
Profit
The Classical Theorists Resemble Euclidean Geometers In A Non-euclidean World Who, Discovering That In Experience Straight Lines Apparently Parallel Often Meet, Rebuke The Lines For Not Keeping Straight As The Only Remedy For The Unfortunate Collisions Which Are Occurring. Yet, In Truth, There Is No Remedy Except To Throw Over The Axiom Of Parallels And To Work Out A Non-euclidean Geometry.
Work Out
World
Lines
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
Years
Criticism
Foundation
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.
Children
Ordinary
Three
It Is Better To Be Roughly Right Than Precisely Wrong.
Insightful
Investing
Chess Is A Cure For Headaches.
Chess
Headache
Cures
Americans Are Apt To Be Unduly Interested In Discovering What Average Opinion Believes Average Opinion To Be.
Believe
Average
America
If Human Nature Felt No Temptation To Take A Chance There Might Not Be Much Investment Merely As A Result Of Cold Calculation.
Business
Temptation
Might
Like All His Type, Newton Was Wholly Aloof From Women.
Newton
Type
Aloof
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.
Government
Views
United States
I Wish I'd Drunk More Champagne.
Bad Ass
Drunk
Alcohol
It Would Be Foolish, In Forming Our Expectations, To Attach Great Weight To Matters Which Are Very Uncertain.
Expectations
Would Be
Weight
Men Will Not Always Die Quietly.
Men
Economics
Dies
I Work For A Government I Despise For Ends I Think Criminal.
Thinking
Government
Criminals
Experience Shows That What Happens Is Always The Thing Against Which One Has Not Made Provision In Advance.
Investing
Made
Provision
It Would Not Be Foolish To Contemplate The Possibility Of A Far Greater Progress Still.
Progress
Foolish
Possibility
It Economics Is A Method Rather Than A Doctrine, An Apparatus Of The Mind, A Technique Of Thinking Which Helps Its Possessor To Draw Correct Conclusions.
Thinking
Mind
Doctrine
Practical Men Who Believe Themselves To Be Quite Exempt From Any Intellectual Influence, Are Usually The Slaves Of Some Defunct Economist. Madmen In Authority, Who Hear Voices In The Air, Are Distilling Their Frenzy From Some Academic Scribbler Of A Few Years Back
Believe
Men
Air
I Know Of Only Three People Who Really Understand Money. A Professor At Another University. One Of My Students. And A Rather Junior Clerk At The Bank Of England.
People
Clerks
Juniors
Capitalism Is The Extraordinary Belief That The Nastiest Of Men, For The Nastiest Of Reasons, Will Somehow Work For The Benefit Of Us All.
Peace
Men
Ubuntu
I Think That Capitalism, Wisely Managed, Can Probably Be Made More Efficient For Attaining Economic Ends Than Any Alternative System Yet In Sight, But That In Itself Is In Many Ways Extremely Objectionable.
Thinking
Sight
Alternatives
The Time Has Already Come When Each Country Needs A Considered National Policy About What Size Of Population, Whether Larger Or Smaller Than At Present Or The Same, Is Most Expedient. And Having Settled This Policy, We Must Take Steps To Carry It Into Operation. The Time May Arrive A Little Later When The Community As A Whole Must Pay Attention To The Innate Quality As Well As To The Mere Numbers Of Its Future Members.
Country
Numbers
Eugenics
As Time Goes On, I Get More And More Convinced That The Right Method Of Investment Is To Put Fairly Large Sums Into Enterprises Which One Thinks One Knows Something About And In The Management Of Which One Thoroughly Believes.
Believe
Thinking
Investing
I Conceive, Therefore, That A Somewhat Comprehensive Socialisation Of Investment Will Prove The Means Of Securing An Approximation To Full Employment.
Mean
Employment
Investing
The Markets Are Moved By Animal Spirits, And Not By Reason.
Animal
Spirit
Reason
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.
Real
Heart
Religion
The Power To Become Habituated To His Surroundings Is A Marked Characteristic Of Mankind.
Characteristics
Surroundings
Mankind
Nothing Mattered Except States Of Mind, Chiefly Our Own.
Pregnancy
Intelligent
Mind
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.
Government
Important
Done
The Avoidance Of Taxes Is The Only Intellectual Pursuit That Still Carries Any Reward.
Funny
Business
Humor
It Is The Long Term Investor Who Will In Practice Come In For The Most Criticism. For It Is The Essence Of His Behaviour That He Should Be Eccentric, Unconventional And Rash In The Eyes Of The Average Opinion. If He Is Successful, That Will Only Confirm The General Belief In His Rashness; And If In The Short Run He Is Unsuccessful, Which Is Very Likely, He Will Not Receive Much Mercy. Worldly Wisdom Teaches That It Is Better For Reputation To Fail Conventionally Than To Succeed Unconventionally.
Running
Independent
Eye
The Expected Never Happens; It Is The Unexpected Always.
Investing
Unexpected
Expected
Successful Investing Is Anticipating The Anticipations Of Others.
Wise
Successful
Investing
The Biggest Problem Is Not To Let People Accept New Ideas, But To Let Them Forget The Old Ones.
Ideas
People
Problem
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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