“The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 2, p. 75

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John Kenneth Galbraith 207

American economist and diplomat 1908–2006

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

“If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.”

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938) American computer scientist

Donald Knuth, quoted in: Arturo Gonzalez-Gutierrez (2007) Minimum-length Corridors: Complexity and Approximations. p. 99

“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (28 July 1949) p. 219
1940s

“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (3 June 1922)

“Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful. (...) The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state.”

Nesta Helen Webster (1876–1960) British far-right conspiracy theorist and author

Source: World Revolution the Plot Against Civilization https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/World_Revolution_the_Plot_Against_Civili/dmlTCAAAQBAJ?gbpv=1&pg=PT162&printsec=frontcover

“Man's shortcomings and sins are all due to the substance of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.8

“It is electromagnetism (EM) in all its many forms that has been so basic, that haunts us and guides us.”

Nick Holonyak (1928) American inventor

about what has been the guiding idea for the development of transistor electronics, in a foreword of the special Indian Edition of [Rao, Elements of Engineering Electromagnetics, Sixth Edition, Pearson Education India, 2006, 8131703991, xix]

“Men having capital, the product of labor to invest, form themselves into companies or associations and consolidate their capital that they may reap a greater profit from their investments … The men who labor, taking this action of the men of capital as a criterion to go by, have formed themselves into companies or associations that they reap a greater profit from the investment of their capital, which is labor. That capital of the former is the creation of man; that latter as the creation of God, and of the two is entitled to the most consideration, since no capital could exist unless labor created it.”

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

"The Organization of Labor," http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=The%20Organization%20of%20Labor;rgn=full%20text;cite1=Powderly;cite1restrict=author;view=image;seq=0122;idno=nora0135-2;node=nora0135-2%3A2 North American Review, vol. 135, no. 2, whole no. 309 (Aug. 1882), pp. 118–9.

“Think back through all the eras of history—the major ones, the tiny obscure ones known only to scholars. Can you think of a man, ever, who was capable of fashioning the future development of mankind to suit his own idea of it—no matter how noble that ideal may have been? Wouldn’t that be just another form of opinion control—no matter how splendid the conception?”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Kennedy did not turn around.
“It takes a great deal of faith in mankind to keep from directing it the way we think it should go,” he said at last.
Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 92.

“Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

No. 305
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.”

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John Kenneth Galbraith 207

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