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.
When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.
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.
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
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.
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
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.
The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.
We will not have any more crashes in our time.
There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
The expected never happens; it is the unexpected always.
All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer.
The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics.
Economics is a very dangerous science.
The glory of the nation you love is a desirable end, – but generally to be obtained at your neighbor’s expense.
The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind.
Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.
If human nature felt no temptation to take a chance there might not be much investment merely as a result of cold calculation.
The numeric system was invented to help man to put order in the chaos of the world.