Keynes Quotes - Page 2

• Wicksell's old-fashioned liberalism is reminiscent of John Maynard Keynes' attitude toward conscription during World War I. Keynes opposed conscription, but he was not a pacifist. He opposed conscription because it deprived the citizen of the right to decide for himself whether or not to join in the fight. Keynes was exempt as a civil servant from conscription; so there is no need to question his sincerity. Apparently his belief in the rights of the individual against a majority of his compatriots was very strong indeed.

  Mancur Olson

  Strong, Attitude, War

  Mancur OLSON (2009). “The Logic of Collective Action”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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• Keynes was a very good economist. He was brilliant. He had wonderful insights. His work has inspired me many times.

  Thomas J. Sargent

  Brilliant, Inspired, Wonderful

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• Ridiculous as our market volatility might seem to an intelligent Martian, it is our reality and everyone loves to trot out the 'quote' attributed to Keynes (but never documented): 'The market can stay irrational longer than the investor can stay solvent.' For us agents, he might better have said 'The market can stay irrational longer than the client can stay patient.'

  Jeremy Grantham

  Intelligent, Reality, Clients

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• Leonard Woolf in a letter to Lytton Strachey said he hated John Maynard Keynes "for his crass stupidity and hideous face".

  Leonard Woolf

  Stupidity, Letters, Faces

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• Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of good wine.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Regret, Wine, Sleep

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• Keynes was chief economic adviser to the British government and largely responsible for keeping the British economy afloat at a time when more than half of our gross national product, and all of our foreign exchange, was being spent on the war. I was lucky to be present at one of his rare appearances in Cambridge, when he gave a lecture with the title "Newton, the Man." Four years later he died of heart failure, precipitated by overwork and the hardships of crossing the Atlantic repeatedly in slow propeller-driven airplanes under wartime conditions.

  Freeman Dyson

  War, Heart, Airplane

  "The Scientist As Rebel". Book by Freeman Dyson, 2006.

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• Only someone as puffed up and demented as John Maynard Keynes, every left wing fascist's sainted mentor in this connection, could manage to convince himself that taxing America's Productive Class can restore it to prosperity. In point of fact, it's like screwing for chastity, guzzling alcohol for sobriety, or gorging to fight gluttony. It's like killing indiscriminately for peace - oops, Democrats, Republicans and their moral and spiritual ilk have devoutly believed that particular bit of perverse nonsense since at least the War of 1812.

  L. Neil Smith

  Spiritual, War, Fighting

  "A Little Austrian Flea". The Libertarian Enterprise, www.ncc-1776.org. March 01, 2009.

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• Keynes vs Hayek? Friedman vs Krugman? Those are the wrong intellectual debates. Its you vs. Tony Hayward, BP CEO, You vs. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO. And you are losing...

  Barry Ritholtz

  Intellectual, Losing, Debate

  "The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations" by Barry Ritholtz, ritholtz.com. September 27, 2010.

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• There is an unearthly, mystical element in Friedman's thought. The mere existence of a stock of money somehow promotes expenditure. But insofar as he offers an intelligible theory, it is made up of elements borrowed from Keynes.

  Joan Robinson

  Elements, Theory, Made

  Joan Robinson (1973). “Economic heresies: some old-fashioned questions in economic theory”

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• Keynes tried to show that market economies could settle in equilibrium states in which the labour market did not clear, and in which the level of unemployment was high. He believed that this was due to a particular example of market failure, developed in his concept of effective demand.

  Paul Ormerod

  Example, Unemployment, Levels

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• Keynes did not teach us how to perform the miracle of turning a stone into bread, but the not at all miraculous procedure of eating the seed corn.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Miracle, Stones, Corn

  Ludwig Von Mises (1974). “Planning for freedom, and twelve other essays and addresses”

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• There's no automatic mechanism in a market system that reconciles the desire to save and the desire to invest. And therefore, the government has to sort of do something or the Federal Reserve, the Fed, or the Central Bank, or whatever, it has to intervene. It has to create enough investment for the economy not to suffer from a fall in aggregate demand. So, if you don't have a balance within the market system itself, then you need an external balance and that's what I think Keynes believed.

  Robert Skidelsky, Baron Skidelsky

  Fall, Thinking, Suffering

  Source: bigthink.com

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• John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

  Warren Buffett

  Trying, Figures, Said

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