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John Maynard Keynes Quotes

Economist
Born On
1883-06-05
Died On
1946-04-21
Birth Place
CambridgeApril
Death Place
East Sussex
Birth Sign
gemini
Father
John Neville Keynes,
Mother
Florence Ada Keynes
Spouse
Lydia Lopokova
Nationality
British
Education
King's College, Cambridge, Eton College, University of Cambridge

When you think of economics in the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes has to be the first name that comes to mind. However, not many of his admirers are aware of these riveting facts about his life:

  • Did you know that Keynes didn’t really receive formal training in Economics? He specialized in mathematics and classical literature at the King’s College, Cambridge. As for Economics, he underwent training for only eight weeks and did not even appear for any examination.
  • John Maynard always advocated rights for women. He insisted that every woman had the right to choose their relationships and have an equal say in all matters. He believed that women should have the choice of availing contraceptives, undergoing sex education and most importantly, stop being treated as subordinated or sexual objects.
  • This economist was a bisexual; though he had a satisfying marriage with dancer Lydia Lopokova, he had homosexual affairs with other men before his wedding. In fact, his best man at his wedding was his lover, artist Duncan Grant.
  • This brilliant theorist always believed in second thoughts, because he knew all ideas were transient and had to change in order to develop further. What made him such a sought-after and revered economist was the fact that he treated his subject as a “matter of time and temper”. His end goal was to serve generations and not follow variable rules.
  • His works became so popular that he was made an epithet—Keynesian was a term coined to describe the budget deficit borne by a government during administration of public welfare initiatives.

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.

John Maynard Keynes

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

John Maynard Keynes

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

John Maynard Keynes

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.

John Maynard Keynes

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

John Maynard Keynes

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

John Maynard Keynes

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

John Maynard Keynes

In the long run we are all dead.

John Maynard Keynes

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.

John Maynard Keynes

Ideas shape the course of history.

John Maynard Keynes

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

John Maynard Keynes

The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.

John Maynard Keynes

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

John Maynard Keynes

I do not know which makes a man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

John Maynard Keynes

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out.

John Maynard Keynes

It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.

John Maynard Keynes

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

John Maynard Keynes

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

John Maynard Keynes

Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.

John Maynard Keynes

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.

John Maynard Keynes

Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.

John Maynard Keynes

Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.

John Maynard Keynes

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

John Maynard Keynes

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

John Maynard Keynes

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

John Maynard Keynes

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.

John Maynard Keynes

The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.

John Maynard Keynes