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The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already... but to do those things which at present are not done at all.

— John Maynard Keynes The End of Laissez-faire (1926)

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More quotes by John Maynard Keynes

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)

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

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)

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Maynard Keynes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.