J K Galbraith Quotes & Sayings

Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego. — John Kenneth Galbraith

I would put primary emphasis on a good standard of living equitably distributed. It can't be equal, but one that eliminates the terrible cruelty of poverty. — John Kenneth Galbraith

There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting. — John Kenneth Galbraith

In spite of her plainness that would have made wallflowers of other women, she radiated a great sense of self-importance. — Robert Galbraith

I've long believed alas, that in highly organized industrial societies, capitalist or socialist, the stronger tendency is to converge - that if steel or automobiles are wanted and must be made on a large scale, the process will stamp its imprint on the society, whether that me be Magnitogorsk or Gary, Indiana. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The women fell silent with the instinctive courtesy women often show to incapacitated males. — Robert Galbraith

At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean. — John Kenneth Galbraith

In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Consumer wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying wants that create the wants. — John Kenneth Galbraith

If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill.
If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.
- Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
The Silkworm — J.K. Rowling

There is an old saying, or should be, that it is a wise economist who recognizes the scope of his own generalizations. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. — John Kenneth Galbraith

We need readers," muttered Daniel Chard. "More readers. Fewer writers. — Robert Galbraith

However, Strike knew that the truly deluded would happily discount such trivialities as DNA evidence, citing contamination, or conspiracy. They saw what they wanted to see, blind to inconvenient, implacable truth. — Robert Galbraith

Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Robin did not know why the announcement that Strike was off to meet Elin should lower her spirits. — Robert Galbraith

In days and he was too late to pick up the trail at her home station. The best he could do was to lurk around the — Robert Galbraith

Don't turn your back, don't show your profile, You'll never know when it's your turn to go. — Robert Galbraith

Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... — Mike Harding

All, the intelligent and stupid, diligent and idle, have been swept along on a current of increased output that, in the usual case, owed nothing whatever to their efforts. — John Kenneth Galbraith

20 See the naive characterization of Backe in J. K. Galbraith, 'Germany was Badly Run', Fortune (December 1945), 177. — Anonymous

Some time ago Ken Galbraith, in his witty and insightful The Great Crash, coined a new economic term: "the bezzle," defined as the current amount of undiscovered embezzlement. This financial creature has a magical quality: The embezzlers are richer by the amount of the bezzle, while the embezzlees do not yet feel poorer. — Warren Buffett

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Keeping busy was the only answer: action had always been his drug of choice. — Robert Galbraith

You are not writing properly unless someone is bleeding, probably you. — Robert Galbraith

Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Power is not something that can be assumed or discarded at will like underwear. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The shortcomings of economics are not original error but uncorrected obsolescence. The obsolescence has occurred because what is convenient has become sacrosanct. Anyone who attacks such ideas must seem to be a trifle self-confident and even aggressive. The man who makes his entry by leaning against an infirm door gets an unjustified reputation for violence. Something is to be attributed to the poor state of the door. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Ideas do not respect national frontiers, and this is especially so where language and other traditions are in common. — John Kenneth Galbraith

I can measure the motions of bodies," Sir Isaac Newton once observed, "but I cannot measure human folly." Nor could he do so as regards his own. He was to lose — John Kenneth Galbraith

Strike would have advised any friend to leave and not look back, but he had come to see her like a virus in his blood that he doubted he would ever eradicate; the best he could hope for was to control its symptoms. — Robert Galbraith

He had almost fallen asleep on top of Elin last night, and counted it among the week's few small achievements that he had finished the job, at least. — Robert Galbraith

You know, there's pride, and then there's stupidity — Robert Galbraith

He was thinking about men like his Uncle Ted, a Cornishman to his bones, who lived and would die in St. Mawes, part of the fabric of the place, remembered as long as there were locals, beaming out of fading photographs of the Life Boat on pub walls. When Ted died - and Strike hoped it would be twenty, thirty years hence - they would mourn him as the unknown Barrovian Grammar boy was being mourned: with drink, with tears, but in celebration that he had been given to them. What had dark, hulking Brockbank, child rapist, and fox-haired Laing, wife-torturer, left behind in the towns of their birth? Shudders of relief that they had gone, fear that they had returned, a trail of broken people and bad memories. — Robert Galbraith

She lay dying, wrapped in invisible robes of martyrdom, presenting her helplessness and passivity to him like adornments, and his dominant feeling was distaste. — Robert Galbraith

If I was going to lie to you, I'd already be elected. — Gatewood Galbraith

Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards. — John Kenneth Galbraith

There were friends all over London who would welcome his eagerly to their homes, who would throw open their guest rooms and their fridges, eager to condole and to help. The price of all of those comfortable beds and home-cooked meals, however, would be to sit at kitchen tables, once the clean-pajamaed children were in bed, and relive the filthy final battle with Charlotte, submitting to the outraged sympathy and pity of his friends' girlfriends and wives. To this he preferred grim solitude, a Pot Noodle and a sleeping bag. — Robert Galbraith