J. K. Galbraith Quotes

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. . .

Banking may well be a career from which no man really recovers.

There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.

In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings.

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.

Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are rarely missed.

In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results far much less.

You will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly too.

Washington is a place where men praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost-benefit calculations.

Technology means the systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks.

By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.

Some things were never meant to be recycled.

No ethic is as ethical as the work ethic.

But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.

The notion that you would initiate a new product without preparing the way by persuasion and advertising and salesmanship is fantastic. It's an integral part of the system.

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action of the machine we have created to serve us.

It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast - even the English can't do it.

A [New Yorker ] is what it has always been. It combines those who pursue the truth with those who pursue the rewards of orthodoxy and those who pursue what is comfortable to the rich.

A more important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality.

Nostalgia combines regularly with manifest respectability to give credence to old error as opposed to new truth.

Nothing so denies a person liberty as the total absence of money.

One must always have in mind one simple fact - there is no literate population in the world that is poor, and there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor.

When everything else failed, we can still become immortal by making an enormous blunder.

A good rule of conversation is never answer a foolish question.

Anyone who says he won't resign four times, will.

Of all the mysteries of the stock exchange there is none so impenetrable as why there should be a buyer for everyone who seeks to sell.

Foresight is an imperfect thing - all prevision in economics is imperfect.

According to the experience of all but the most accomplished jugglers, it is easier to keep one ball in the air than many.

Much of the world's work, it has been said, is done by men who do not feel quite well. Marx is a case in point.

The line dividing the state from what is called private enterprise, orat least fromthehighlyorganized part of it, is a traditional fiction.

A point must be repeated: only the pathological weakness of the financial memory...allows us to believe that the modern experience of....debt...is in any way a new phenomenon.

Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.

There's no question that in my lifetime, the contrast between what I called private affluence and public squalor has become very much greater.

The inborn instability of capitalism has been part of the history of the system for several hundred years.

Nothing so weakens government as persistent inflation.

My rule on honorary degrees has always been to have one more than Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

If I was going to lie to you, I'd already be elected.

Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

Economics exists to make astrology look respectable.

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.

The modern corporation must manufacture not only goods but the desire for the goods it manufactures.

I would put primary emphasis on a good standard of living equitably distributed. It can't be equal, but one that eliminates the terrible cruelty of poverty.

Happiness does not require an expanding economy

Who is king in the world of the blind when there isn't even a one eyed man?

Economic stimulation that works through the increased outlays to the affluent has, inevitably, an aspect of soundness and sanity that is lacking in expenditure on behalf of the undeserving poor.

Third party politics, at least since La Follette, has always had an element of romance.

Unemployment is rarely considered desirable except by those who have not experienced it.

If you're rich you can buy books. If you're poor, you need a library.

There are always loose ends in real life.