John Maynard Keynes

Marxists are ready to sacrifice the political liberties of individuals in order to change the existing economic order. So are Fascists and Nazis. That is why I said that those who had toyed with Marxist ideas could not have a clear …

It seems to me that today's news about Germany cannot be taken too seriously. The hideous dilemma is presented – allowing them to call our bluff, and re-arm as and when they choose, with what results one can imagine, or the horror of a …

Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.

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

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the …

Capitalism... is absolutely irreligious, without internal union, without much public spirit, often... a mere congeries of possessors and pursuers. Such a system has to be immensely, not merely moderately, successful to survive.

On the economic side I cannot perceive that Russian Communism has made any contribution to our economic problems of intellectual interest or scientific value. I do not think that it contains, or is likely to contain, any piece of useful …

How can I accept a doctrine which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world?

There is... no so-called important political question so really unimportant, so irrelevant to the re-organization of the economic life of Great Britain, as the Nationalisation of the Railways.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

There is no party in the world... pursuing right aims by right methods. Material Poverty provides the incentive to change... where there is very little margin for experiments. Material Prosperity removes the incentive just when it might be …

Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but... in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable. Our problem is to work out a social …

The time has... come when each country needs a considered national policy about what size of Population... is most expedient.

Many of the greatest economic evils of our time are the fruits of risk, uncertainty, and ignorance.

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.

We must aim at separating those services which are technically social from those which are technically individual. The most important Agenda of the State relate not to those activities which private individuals are already fulfilling, but …

It is not a correct deduction from the Principles of Economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest. Nor is it true that self-interest generally is enlightened; more often individuals acting separately to …

It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive "natural liberty" in their economic activities. There is no "compact" conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire.

In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the …

are the real parents of Revolution.

the absolutists of contract

everything is to be considered and weighed on its merits.

The State is a sovereign body of which the purpose is to promote the greatest good of the whole.