For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
Meaning of the quote
This quote suggests that we should continue to act as if bad things are good and good things are bad, because the bad things are more useful and practical for us right now. The quote also says that greed, high interest rates, and being very careful with money should be the most important things for us for a little while longer. The author is saying that even though it may seem wrong, these less-than-ideal behaviors and beliefs are necessary for the time being.
More quotes from John Maynard Keynes
It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of a far greater progress still.
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The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
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Ideas shape the course of history.
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It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
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There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.
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The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
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The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
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If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
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Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
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The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
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Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.
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Nothing mattered except states of mind, chiefly our own.
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The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn’t deliver the goods.
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A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.
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Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.
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I do not know which makes a man more conservative – to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
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Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
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Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.
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I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.
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In the long run we are all dead.
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Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be.
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By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
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For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
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Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.
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