Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes Quotes

Economist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEconomicsInvestingIfsEconomicMenLongInvestmentWealthMindShouldWaySocialThinkingIdeasMayWorldGovernmentEconomistEconomyEnterprise

Famous John Maynard Keynes Quotes

“The war has ended with every one owing every one else immense sums of money. Germany owes a large sum to the Allies, the Allies owe a large sum to Great Britain, and Great Britain owes a large sum to the United States. The holders of war loan in every country are owed a large sum by the States, and the States in its turn is owed a large sum by these and other taxpayers. The whole position is in the highest degree artificial, misleading, and vexatious. We shall never be able to move again, unless we can free our limbs from these paper shackles.”

PeaceEconomicsWorld War IKeynes
Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Create image

“Like the monetarist Milton Friedman, Keynes looked to price stability as a way to shore up classical economic thinking. For the most part, he believed, laissez-faire economics worked. Supply and demand did bring society to a prosperous equilibrium. They just needed a few pieces of basic economic architecture to work: property rights, the rule of law, and price stability. But unlike Friedman, Keynes had arrived at monetarism as a creative way to expand the power of the state to fight the uncertainties and anxieties of postwar life.”

LawEconomicsPropertyMilton FriedmanJohn Maynard KeynesPrice SystemMonetarism
Book:The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money AND Essays In Persuasion
Create image

“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.”

IfsMatterGovernmentCoursesLevelsMoneyRichEssentialsEconomicsSocialismDeceptionFraudRegulationCommodityBankingTaxationConcealedRefrainWorthlessness
Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace: The classic text on the Treaty of Versailles and post war Europe
Create image

“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.”

IfsWorldMeanCountryWholeEarthOrderPeaceNaturalWealthMorningAdventureProductsBedComfortableResourcesEconomicsClimateVariousLondonSecureTeaEnterpriseQuartersTelephonesNatural ResourcesPassportsFormalitySipping
Author:John Maynard Keynes
Create image

“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.”

IfsBeliefHistoryPowerLearningTheoryEconomicsThirdsDetermineAlternativesNothing NewSaying Nothing
Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
Create image

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

ImportantGovernmentProcessWealthPoorMoneyPowerEconomySocietyEconomicCitizensEconomicsProsperityContinuingBankingInflationCivil SocietyEconomic FreedomDistribution Of WealthCentral BankingEconomic ReformsHyperinflationContinuing On
Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Create image

“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.”

HumansHeartRealProblemReligionEconomicCreationBehaviorEconomicsRelationSeatsArenaHuman RelationsReal ProblemsEconomic ProblemsEconomy And Economics
Book:The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes
Create image

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency. . . Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose.”

MenWayMeanDoeSaidLawForceProcessSidesLibertyMillionsEconomicEconomicsDestructionBasesBest WayOne ManCurrencyInflationEconomic FreedomBanking SystemMonetary SystemCentral Banking
Book:The Economic Consequences of the Peace: The Economist
Create image

“Unlike physics, for example, such parts of the bare bones of economic theory as are expressible in mathematical form are extremely easy compared with the economic interpretation of the complex and incompletely known facts of experience, and lead one a very little way towards establishing useful results.”

WayLittlesFactsFormEasyResultsKnownEconomicExampleTheoryEconomicsComplexesBonesPhysicsMathematicalInterpretationEconomic Theory
Book:The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Essays in biography
Create image

“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.”

WorldRealLosesEconomicsSightMereInvestingSymbolsMathematicalComplexityAssumptionProportionReal WorldInitialsPretentiousMazes
Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
Create image

“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.”

MindBookEndsSeemsSoundInterestMistakeExampleReaderPagesModelsEconomicsMarkRemainsHistoricalExtraordinaryStartingBackgroundsPropositionsTheoreticalHayekMuddleRemorseless
Book:The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: The general theory and after: pt. 1, Preparation
Create image

“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.”

ActionSpiritDecisionAnimalResultsTakenBenefitsConsequenceEconomicsAverageOutcomesUrgesSpontaneousProbabilityInactionDays To ComeAnimal Spirits
Author:John Maynard Keynes
Create image

“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.”

LongStatesPhilosophyPoliticalSocialViewsResponsibilityGreaterPositionAdvantageEconomicsBasesInvestmentGoodsEfficiency
Book:Keynes and Public Policy After Fifty Years: Theories and method
Create image