458 Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.

The threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. Exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great – a little understood thing.

We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you’re looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.

If a man didn’t make sense, the Scotch felt it was misplaced politeness to try to keep him from knowing it. Better that he be aware of his reputation, for this would encourage reticence which goes well with stupidity.

If there must be madness, something may be said for having it on a heroic scale.

It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast – even the English can’t do it.

Tenure was originally invented to protect radical professors, those who challenged the accepted order. But we don’t have such people anymore at the universities, and the reason is tenure. When the time comes to grant it nowadays, the radicals get screened out. That’s its principal function. It’s a very good system, really – keeps academic life at a decent level of tranquility.

It’s great to be with William Buckley, because you don’t have to think. He takes a position and you automatically take the opposite one and you know you’re right.

It is a well known and very important fact that America’s founding fathers did not like taxation without representation. It is a lesser known and equally important fact that they did not much like taxation with representation.