262 Quotes by John Maynard Keynes

All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer.

The same rule of self-destructive financial calculation governs every walk of life. We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the un-appropriated splendors of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.

I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel--these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.

Our attitude to these criticisms must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World.

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

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

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

But if America recalls for a moment what Europe has meant to her and still means to her, what Europe, the mother of art and of knowledge, in spite of everything, still is and still will be, will she not reject these counsels of indifference and isolation, and interest herself in what may prove decisive issues for the progress and civilization of all mankind?

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.