WIST

The tendency of bureaucracy [is] to find purpose in whatever it is doing.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“Foreign Policy: The Plain Lessons of a Bad Decade,” Foreign Policy (Dec 1970)

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“Stop the Madness,” Interview with Rupert Cornwell, Toronto Globe and Mail (6 Jul 2002)

There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy, but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The American Ambassador,” Foreign Service Journal (Jun 1969)

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
(also called "Galbraith's Law")

It is almost as important to know what is not serious as to know what is.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)

There is something uniquely obscene about competition to promote weapons of mass destruction for the purposes of improving the stock market position of a corporation.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)

Where humor is concerned there are no standards

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
http://www.decrepitoldfool.com/index.php/weblog/comments/jk_galbraith_dies/

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
http://www.decrepitoldfool.com/index.php/weblog/comments/jk_galbraith_dies/

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
http://www.decrepitoldfool.com/index.php/weblog/comments/jk_galbraith_dies/

When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble – until the day of disaster.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed)
Quoted in B. Laurance, W. Keegan, "Galbraith on crashes, Japan and Walking Sticks", The Observer (21 Jun 1998)

Who’d have thought we were fighting this war against a bunch of jerks.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
(Attributed, 1946)
On seeing the line-up of Nazi war crimes accused at Nuremburg. In Alex Ross, "Watching for a Judgment of Real Evil," <i>New York Times</i> (12 Nov 1995)

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

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
A Life in Our Times: Memoirs, ch. 11 (1981)

Under capitalism, man exploits man. And under Communism it is just the reverse.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
A Life in Our Times, ch. 22 (1981)

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

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Ambassador’s Journal (1969)

The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market award for achievement.  It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Annals of an Abiding Liberal, ch. 6 (1979)

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
London Guardian (28 July 1989)
also attrib. Darrow

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Money: Whence it came, where it went (1975)

If all else fails immortality can always be assured by adequate error.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975)

The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, Introduction (1977 ed.)

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 12 (1977)

When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It’s a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 12 (1977)

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Great Crash, 1929 (1955)

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.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Guardian (28 Jul 1989)

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
In The Guardian, London (28 Jul 1989)

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

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Letter to Pres. Kennedy (2 Mar. 1962)