01UndatedWe all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
02UndatedThe worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few people as possible escape the common misfortune. The fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met that there would still be another. In the end all the money he had was extracted from him and lost. The man with the smart money, who was safely out of the market when the first crash came, naturally went back in to pick up bargains. The bargains then suffered a ruinous fall. Even the man who waited for volume of trading to return to normal and saw Wall Street become as placid as a produce market, and who then bought common stocks would see their value drop to a third or a fourth of the purchase price in the next 24 months. The Coolidge bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
03UndatedThere is an old saying, or should be, that it is a wise economist who recognizes the scope of his own generalizations.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
04UndatedIf there must be madness, something may be said for having it on a heroic scaleJohn Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
05UndatedThe capacity for erroneous belief is very great, especially where it coincides with convenience.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
06UndatedOne of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
07UndatedThe modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness... & ... Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.–John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
08UndatedThe members of the functional and socially mobilized under class must, in some very real way, be seen as the architects of their own fate. If not, they could be, however marginally, on the conscience of the comfortable. There could be a disturbing feeling, however fleeting, of unease, even guilt.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
09UndatedThere is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
11UndatedI have never understood why one's affections must be confined as once with women to a single country.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
12UndatedMeetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
13UndatedIn economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
14UndatedHumor is richly rewarding to the person who employs it. It has some value in gaining and holding attention, but it has no persuasive value at all.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
16UndatedThe salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
17UndatedAll of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
18UndatedThere is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
19UndatedPolitics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
20UndatedThe modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
21UndatedLiberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
22UndatedThere are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
24UndatedThe process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.John Kenneth Galbraith / quote ↗
