Quotes by Galbraith, John Kenneth

"Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on vacation   

"People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on virtue   

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth on wealth   

"The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on wealth   

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth on wealth   

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth on wisdom   

"Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on work   

"In the choice between changing one's mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on choice   

"The Metropolis should have been aborted long before it became New York, London or Tokyo."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on life   

"The traveler to the United States will do well to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar English version in being more extreme and based more firmly on the conviction that the class to which the speaker belongs is inherently superior to all others."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on class   

"In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on complacency
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"The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not."

Galbraith, John Kenneth on crime and criminals