John Kenneth Galbraith: Trending quotes

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John Kenneth Galbraith: 414 quotes1 like

“SOME YEARS, like some poets, and politicians and some lovely women, are singled out for fame far beyond the common lot, and 1929 was clearly such a year.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter I, A Year To Remember, p. 1

“Any consideration of the life and larger social existence of the modern corporate man… begins and also largely ends with the effect of one all-embracing force. That is organization — the highly structured assemblage of men, and now some women, of which he is a part. It is to this, at the expense of family, friends, sex, recreation and sometimes health and effective control of alcoholic intake, that he is expected to devote his energies.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

"Corporate Man," The New York Times (22 January 1984)

“Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man's greatest source of joy. And with death as his greatest source of anxiety. Over all history it has oppressed nearly all people in one of two ways: either it has been abundant and very unreliable, or reliable and very scarce.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 6, p. 161

“I never enjoyed writing a book more; indeed, it is the only one I remember in no sense as a labor but as a joy.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Introduction, Section I, p. x <br class="br">Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

“Meetings are a great trap. … they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Ambassador's Journal (1969), p. 84 http://books.google.com/books?id=J1NCAAAAIAAJ&q=&quot;meetings+are+a+great+trap&quot;+&quot;they+are+indispensable+when+you+don't+want+to+do+anything&quot;&pg=PA84#v=onepage

“A constant in the history of money is that every remedy is reliably a source of new abuse.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter II, Of Coins and Treasure

“Economics is not an exact science.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 1, p. 36

“The Metropolis should have been aborted long before it becameNew York, London or Tokyo.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 11, p. 323

“Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego. It is well no doubt, to reflect on how much one owes to others.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Foreword p. x
The Affluent Society (1958)

“The pioneering instrument of reform was the Bank of England. Of all institutions concerned with economics none has for so long enjoyed such prestige. It is, in all respects, to money as St. Peter's is to Faith.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter IV, The Bank, p. 30

“A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism (1986)

“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.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 12, p. 324

“With the American failure came world failure.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XX, Where It Went, p. 293

“Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

"H.L. Mencken," The Washington Post (14 September 1980); reprinted in A View from the Stands (1986)

“Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Interview with Lorie Conway (1997) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004) ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield. Conway saw these words on a framed needlepoint, entitled "Galbraith's First Law," at Galbraith's home

“Despite a flattering supposition to the contrary, people come readily to terms with power. There is little reason to think that the power of the great bankers, while they were assumed to have it, was much resented. But as the ghosts of numerous tyrants, from Julius Caesar to Benito Mussolini will testify, people are very hard on those who, having had power, lose it or are destroyed. Then anger at past arrogance is joined with contempt for the present weakness. The victim or his corpse is made to suffer all available indignities.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VI https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Things Become More Serious, Section IV, p 115 <br class="br">The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

“In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The New York Times Magazine (7 June 1970)

“The size of General Motors is in the service not of monopoly or the economies of scale but of planning.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter VII, Section 2, p. 76

“Economic life, as always, is a matrix in which result becomes cause and cause becomes result.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XIV, When The Money Stopped, p. 192

“If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 5, p. 137