Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 2, p. 97
“Very important functions can be performed very wastefully and often are.”
Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 17, Section I, p. 190
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John Kenneth Galbraith 207
American economist and diplomat 1908–2006Related quotes

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

Address to the Constituent Assembly (1947)

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

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.

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)

“Very few crooks perform with a police audience.”
Source: Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978), p. 14