Money Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

If you're rich you can buy books. If you're poor, you need a library.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

I think without a doubt, that what is called "financial genius" is merely a rising market.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The foresight of financial experts was, as so often, a poor guide to the future.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

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

— John Kenneth Galbraith

But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Of all classes the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Much discussion of money involves a heavy overlay of priestly incantation.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The huge capacity to purchase submission that goes with any large sum of money, well, this we have. This is a power…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

I am for a close global association in trade and financial matters, rather than the opposite possibility of excessive nationalism, as manifested…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money,…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

A point must be repeated: only the pathological weakness of the financial memory...allows us to believe that the modern experience of…debt...is in…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.Past experience,…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The attraction of power we take for granted in politics.. But in economics...the thrust...is for pecuniary return, for money. And I have…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

In 1736, Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette printed an apology for its irregular appearence because its printer was "with the Press, labouring for the…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire…

— 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

More investment trusts securities were offered in September of 1929 even than in August - the total was above $600 million. However,…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. A certain glib mastery of verbiage-the ability to speak portentously…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Then came the second Amsterdam discovery, although the principle was known elsewhere. Bank deposits...did not need to be left idly in the…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Let’s begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system.…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Even in such a time of madness as the late twenties, a great many man in Wall Street remained quite sane. But…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The process by which money is created is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Nothing is more portable than rich people and their money

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Truth has anciently been called the first casualty of war. Money may, in fact, have priority.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Nothing so denies a person liberty as the total absence of money.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

The greater the wealth the thicker will be the dirt.

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“Nothing in modern attitudes is believed more to signify exceptional intelligence than association with large pools of money. Only immediate experience with…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

What was needed was a policy that increased the supply of money available for use and then ensured its use. Then the…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

That one never need to look beyond the love of money for explanation of human behavior is one of the most jealously…

— John Kenneth Galbraith

One can relish the varied idiocy of human action during a panic to the full, for, while it is a time of…

— John Kenneth Galbraith