The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
Our attitude to these criticisms must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World.
How long will it be necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?
The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
By this means the government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping the old ones.
If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.
Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.
In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.