... a speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.
John Maynard KeynesWell, when I get new information, I rethink my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?
John Maynard KeynesLenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalistic System was to debauch the currency. . . Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose.
John Maynard KeynesThe ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
John Maynard KeynesSpeculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes a bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.
John Maynard Keynes