John Kenneth Galbraith quotes - page 10

Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
If the state is the executive committee of the great corporation and the planning system, it is partly because neoclassical economics is its instrument for neutralizing the suspicion that this is so. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Two men jumped hand-in-hand from a high window in the Ritz. They had a joint account. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
People are the common denominator of progress. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you're looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble - until the day of disaster. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Clerks in downtown hotels were said to be asking guests whether they wished the room for sleeping or jumping. Two men jumped hand-in-hand from a high window in the Ritz. They had a joint account. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
No hungry man who is also sober can be persuaded to use his last dollar for anything but food. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Originality is something that is easily exaggerated, especially by authors contemplating their own work. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are not missed. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
There can be no question, however, that prolonged commitment to mathematical exercises in economics can be damaging. It leads to the atrophy of judgement and intuition... (John Kenneth Galbraith)
The ideas by which people ... interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
When people are the least sure, they are often the most dogmatic. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
People are the common denominator of progress. So ... no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain whenpeople are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the otherfamiliar furniture of economic development.... But we are coming to realize ... that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments thatstand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
People are the common denominator of progress. So, paucis verbis, no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development. At some stages of development - the stage that India and Pakistan have reached, for example - they are central to the strategy of development. But we are coming to realize, I think, that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith