John Kenneth Galbraith
Economist
1908-10-15
Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith
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Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
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Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.
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But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.
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I am worried about our tendency to over invest in things and under invest in people.
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One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
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Good writing, and this is especially important in a subject such as economics, must also involve the reader in the matter at hand. It is not enough to explain. The images that are in the mind of the writer must be made to reappear in the mind of the reader, and it is the absence of this ability that causes much economic writing to be condemned, quite properly, as abstract.
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None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.
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Wisdom, itself, is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the man who asserts it and the manner of its assertion.
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Wisdom, itself, is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the man who asserts it and the manner of its assertion.
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Good writing, and this is especially important in a subject such as economics, must also involve the reader in the matter at hand. It is not enough to explain. The images that are in the mind of the writer must be made to reappear in the mind of the reader, and it is the absence of this ability that causes much economic writing to be condemned, quite properly, as abstract.
Read quote -
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
Read quote -
I am worried about our tendency to over invest in things and under invest in people.
Read quote -
None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.
Read quote -
One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
Read quote -
But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.
Read quote -
Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.
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In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
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You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
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There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
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