John Kenneth Galbraith quotes

The 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)
Meetings are a great trap. ... they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
All 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. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith
In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes. View quote
John Kenneth Galbraith