John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“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.”

— 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

“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.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— 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

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

— 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

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“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.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith