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

“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

“It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— 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

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

— 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

“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

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

— 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

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— 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

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith