John Kenneth Galbraith

“Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.”

— 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.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent. It has not been the devil's policy to keep the masses of mankind in ignorance but finding that they will read, he is doing all in his power to poison their books.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“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

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith