“Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are.”

—  John Kenneth Galbraith, book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 17, Section I, p. 190

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are." by John Kenneth Galbraith?
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
John Kenneth Galbraith207
American economist and diplomat 1908–2006

Related quotes

“Logic and truth are two very different things, but they often look the same to the mind that’s performing the logic.”

Theodore Sturgeon book More Than Human

Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 2, p. 97

David Brinkley photo

“The one function that T. V. news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.”

David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist

as cited in One Man's America (2008), George F. Will, Random House, p. 118 (Chapter 15, Lingerie and Duct Tape) : ISBN 0307407861 9780307407863

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“Beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence, and reasonability. And very often expressed in curves.”

Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy

Source: Red Mars

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing the future constitution of Pakistan and the second of functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to the Constituent Assembly (1947)

P. D. Ouspensky photo

“Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones.”

P. D. Ouspensky book Tertium Organum

Tertium Organum (1922)
Context: Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones. And since we are able to trace how the energy of love transforms itself into instincts, ideas, creative forces on different planes of life; into symbols of art, song, music, poetry; so can we easily imagine how the same energy may transform itself into a higher order of intuition, into a higher consciousness which will reveal to us a marvelous and mysterious world.
In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.

“Women watched for the spectacular performances of the men, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the presence of an audience is a very important factor in shaping the men's behavior. In fact, it is probable that the men are more exhibitionistic because the women admire their performances. Conversely, there can be no doubt that the spectacular behavior is a stimulus which summons the audience together, promoting in the women the appropriate behavior.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Bateson as cited in: David Lipset (1982) Gregory Bateson: the legacy of a scientist. p. 143

Benoît Mandelbrot photo

“I think it's very important to have both cartoons and more realistic structures. The cartoons have the power of representing the essential very often, but have this intrinsic weakness of being in a certain sense predictable.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

Segment 70
Peoples Archive interview
Context: I think it's very important to have both cartoons and more realistic structures. The cartoons have the power of representing the essential very often, but have this intrinsic weakness of being in a certain sense predictable. Once you look at the Sierpinski triangle for a very long time you see more consequences of the construction, but they are rather short consequences, they don't require a very long sequence of thinking. In a certain sense, the most surprising, the richest sciences are those in which we start from simple rules and then go on to very, very long trains of consequences and very long trains of consequences, which you are still predicting correctly.

Pierre Hadot photo

“It is misinterpretation and incomprehension which, very often, provoked an important evolution in the history of philosophy and which, notably, led to the appearance of new notions.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

Ce sont les contresens et les incompréhensions qui, très souvent, ont provoqué une évolution importante dans l’histoire de la philosophie, et qui, notamment, ont fait apparaître des notions nouvelles.
Études de philosophie ancienne (1998)

Robert LeFevre photo

“Very few crooks perform with a police audience.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Source: Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978), p. 14

Related topics