A biography for John Kenneth Galbraithhasn’t been written yet.
“More die in the United States of too much food than of too little.”
“In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.”
“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.”
“In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.”
“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.”
“Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear.”
“One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.”
“There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.”
“We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.”
“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.”
“Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.”
“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”
“There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.”
“התיאוריה הכלכלית היא דבר מועיל מאוד - כמקור תעסוקה לכלכלנים.”
“בכל ארגון גדול זה הרבה, הרבה יותר בטוח להיות בצד שטועה יחד עם הרוב מאשר להיות בצד שצודק לבד.”
“בארצות הברית, למרות שכוח משחית, הציפייה לכוח משתקת.”
“העשירים יישארו עשירים, אלה הנהנים מחיים נוחים ימשיכו ליהנות מהם, אולם בואו נפנה מקום בשולחן גם לעניים.”
“כלכלנים הם חסכניים בכל הקשור לרעיונות חדשים, הרעיונות שהם רכשו במהלך לימודיהם באקדמיה מספיקים להם לכל החיים.”
“דמוקרטיה של ברי המזל ושל העשירים שבה לעניים אין חלק.”
“The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.”