188 quotes
Men have been swindled by other men on many occasions. The autumn of 1929 was, perhaps, the first occasion when men succeeded on a large scale in swindling themselves.
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954)
For thousands of reluctant scholars, a few distantly remembered curves depicting the interaction of supply and demand to establish prices have for long been the only permanent return on an investment in economic education.
The New Industrial State (1967)
In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.
The United States (1971)
Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue.
Interview with Lorie Conway (1997)
No one was responsible for the great Wall Street crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of free choice and decision of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954)
A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I've put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.
The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism (1986)
The American colonies, all know, were greatly opposed to taxation without representation. They were also, a less celebrated quality, equally opposed to taxation with representation.
What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the state of trade would have to improve.
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)
The present age of contentment will come to an end only when and if the adverse developments that it fosters challenge the sense of comfortable well-being
The Culture of Contentment (1992)
Those who yearn for the end of capitalism should pray for government by men who believe that all positive action is inimical to what they call thoughtfully the fundamental principles of free enterprise.
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)
If the state is the executive committee of the great corporation and the planning system, it is partly because neoclassical economics is its instrument for neutralizing the suspicion that this is so.
Power and the Useful Economist (1973)
A banker need not be popular; indeed a good banker in a healthy capitalist society should probably be much disliked. People do not wish to trust their money to a hail-fellow-well-met but to a misanthrope who can say no.
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954)
That one’s personal reactions signify the public reaction is not, scientifically, a defensible proposition but where the preservation of precious intellectual capital is involved, scientific method is readily sacrificed.
The New Industrial State (1967)
The power of the market, which is the fulcrum of traditional attitudes, depends on the validity of this assumption. It is a far, far better thing to admit to monopoly profits, even at exploitive levels, than to concede that the market is impotent.
The New Industrial State (1967)
If he suspects that economics, as it is conventionally taught, is, in part, a system of belief designed less to reveal truth than to reassure students and other communicants as to the benign tendency of established social arrangements, he will also be right.
The New Industrial State (1967)
In the early days of the crash it was widely believed that Jesse L. Livermore, a Bostonian with a large and unquestionably exaggerated reputation for bear operations, leading asyndicate that was driving the market down.
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954)
In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)
The huge capacity to purchase submission that goes with any large sum of money, well, this we have. This is a power of which we should all be aware.
The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism (1986)
Few things in life can be so appalling as the difference between a dry antiseptic statement of a principle by a well spoken man in a quiet office, and what happens to people when that principle is put into practice.
The Age of Uncertainty (1977)
The masters thought they were loved until one day one of their favorites farted loudly while serving dinner and the next day was gone. The very first manifestation of the classless society is the disappearance of the servant class.
The Age of Uncertainty (1977)