Politics Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

Some things were never meant to be recycled.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Third party politics, at least since La Follette, has always had an element of romance.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Anyone who says he won't resign four times, will.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

No intelligence system can predict what a government will do if it doesn't know itself.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Nothing so weakens government as persistent inflation.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Economists are economical, among other things, of ideas; most make those of their graduate days do for a lifetime.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

You roll back the stones, and you find slithering things. That is the world of Richard Nixon.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

SOME YEARS, like some poets,and politicians and some lovely women, are singled out for fame far beyond the common lot, and 1929…

— 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…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

In public administration good sense would seem to require the public expectation be kept at the lowest possible level in order to…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary, no economist should be denied it, and not many are.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Technology, under all circumstances, leads to planning; in its higher manifestations it may put the problems of planning beyond the reach of…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

A very complicated mass of things influences the economy - the speculative effect, government policy, consumer borrowing and spending, the level of…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Those who yearn for the end of capitalism should pray for government by men who believe that all positive action is inimical…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

And there was a deeper, less visible effect of the Truman loyalty program. Seeing its consequences for certain individuals and fearing its…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

No politician can praise unemployment or inflation, and there is no way of combining high employment with stable prices that does not…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Broadly speaking, Keynesianism means that the government has a specific responsibility for the behavior of the economy, that it doesn't work on…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

In the old days, land was important as the giver of all things. That period is gone now. Technology and brainpower are…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Capitalism is chronically unstable.Boom and bust has always marked capitalism in the United States. There were panics in 1785, 1791, 1819, 1857,…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Nothing so weakens a government as inflation.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

I've become accustomed to supporting politicians who are more conservative than I am. This is not entirely a surprise.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

You will find that [the] State [Department] is the kind of organisation which, though it does big things badly, does small things…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Few things are as immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by whichthey have once won office.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral…

— 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