Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

Economist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEconomyMenPeopleEconomicsEconomicIfsPoliticsWorldPoliticalCapitalismShouldInvestingStatesGovernmentPoorHas BeensEconomistModernProblemImportant

Famous John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

PeopleInspirationalMotivationalLeadershipCommonLeaderVisionAnxietyMajorsEssenceCharacteristicsWillingnessGreat LeaderBeing A LeaderInspiring LeaderGreat LeadershipLeadership By Famous LeadersBest LeaderLeadership By Great LeadersGreatest LeadershipFuture LeadersPowerful LeadersInnovation And LeadershipParticipative LeadershipLeading On
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular.”

PeopleIfsLevelsMoneyMysterySubjectsTalentParticularLowsEconomicsTasksProfessionManageImperfectProtectedEvidentLow Level
Book:Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went
Create image

“Over the span of man's history, although a phenomenal amount of education, persuasion, indoctrination and incantation have been devoted to the effort, ordinary people have never been quite persuaded that toil is as agreeable as its alternatives. Thus to take increased well-being partly in the form of more goods and partly in the form of more leisure is unquestionably rational.”

PeopleMenWellsHas BeensFormEffortAmountOrdinaryRationalAlternativesWell BeingGoodsLeisureDevotedToilPersuasionOrdinary PeoplePhenomenalIndoctrination
Book:The affluent society
Create image

“Get the process of negotiation away from the small specialized group that some people have called the "nuclear theologians" ... Only a few people can understand the nature of these weapons ... This kept the whole discussion to a very limited group of people who, in a way, had assumed responsibility for saying whether we should live or die.”

PeopleWayShouldWholeDiesProcessResponsibilityGroupsWeaponsNuclearDiscussionNegotiationTheologian
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“I was in charge of price controls in World War II and had a ceiling on overall prices. Everybody who was subject to general maximum price regulation wanted an exception and went to Congress to persuade a Congressman, or a group of people on the Hill, that I was being a menace to their industry.”

PeopleWorldWarWantedGroupsSubjectsIndustryCongressHillsWar Of The WorldsExceptionWorld War IiRegulationWorld War IMaximumCeilingsMenaceCongressman
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“People are the common denominator of progress. So 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. But we are coming to realize that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.”

PeopleFirstsWould BeCertainRealizingCommonEducationProgressSeaEconomicDevelopmentImportancePlantEducationalImprovementFamiliarEducatedLiteracyConquestFurnitureMonumentLiberatedMillsRailroadsStand AloneEconomic DevelopmentCommon DenominatorIlliteracyPower Plants
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“Capitalism is chronically unstable.Boom and bust has always marked capitalism in the United States. There were panics in 1785, 1791, 1819, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1907, 1929 and 1987.In economies and politics, as in war, an astonishing number of people die, like the man on the railway crossing, defending their right of way. This is a poorly developed instinct in Switzerland. No country so firmly avows the principles of private enterprise but in few have the practical concessions to socialism been more numerous and varied.”

PeopleMenWayWarCountryStatesDiesUnitedNumbersPrinciplesUnited StatesEconomyHe ManCapitalismInstinctPracticalsSocialismEnterprisePanicAstonishingCrossingsUnstableRailwaySwitzerlandConcessionsPrivate Enterprise
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image

“From the fact of general well-being came the new position of the poor. They were now in most communities a minority. The voice of the people was now the voice of relative affluence. Politicians in pursuit of votes could be expected to have a diminishing concern for the very poor. Compassion would have to serve instead - an uncertain substitute.”

PeopleWellsFactsPoliticalPoliticsVoiceCommunityPoorCompassionPositionPoliticianConcernVoteExpectedPursuitWell BeingMinoritiesSubstitutesRelativeUncertainAffluenceNew Position
Book:A life in our times: memoirs
Create image

“One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read.”

PeopleWritingMightPoliticsPleasurePositionRealizationAnnoyingPretentiousGreatest Pleasures
Book:Unconventional wisdom: lectures from the John Kenneth Galbraith prize in economics
Create image

“When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.”

PeopleThinkingFeelingsGovernmentPoliticsAcceptingDemocracySocietyErrorsConservativeBoxesArrangementsRevoltBallotsDemocracies HaveAberration
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
Create image