John Kenneth Galbraith

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

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.

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

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.

More die in the United States of too much food than of too little.

The 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.

War remains the decisive human failure.

Humor 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.

Good writing, and this is especially important in a subject such as economics, must also involve the reader in the matter at hand. It is not enough to explain. The images that are in the mind of the writer must be made to reappear in the mind of the reader, and it is the absence of this ability that causes much economic writing to be condemned, quite properly, as abstract.

None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

I have never understood why one's affections must be confined as once with women to a single country.