15 quotes
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
Leninism is a combination of two things which Europeans have kept for some centuries in different compartments of the soul — religion and business.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
If one is born a political animal, it is most uncomfortable not to belong to a political party; cold and lonely and futile it is.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
I do not know which makes a man more conservative — to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
By what modus operandi does credit restriction attain this result? In no other way than by the deliberate intensification of unemployment.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
Comfort and habits let us be ready to forgo, but I am not ready for a creed which does not care how much it destroys the liberty and security of daily life, which uses deliberately the weapons of persecution, destruction and international strife.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
On the negative test, I incline to believe that the Liberal Party is still the best instrument of future progress—if only it had strong leadership and the right programme.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of nature and men's devices are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
This state of affairs is not an inevitable consequence of a decreased capacity to produce wealth. I see no reason why, with good management, real wages need be reduced on the average. It is the consequence of a misguided monetary policy.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
For my part I think that capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)
The increase of technical efficiency has been taking place faster than we can deal with the problem of labour absorption; the improvement in the standard of life has been a little too quick; the banking and monetary system of the world has been preventing the rate of interest from falling as fast as equilibrium requires.
Essays in Persuasion (1931)