It is the business of economists, not to tell us what to do, but show why what we are doing anyway is in accord with proper principles.

In general, the nightmare quality of Marx's thought gives it, in this bedevilled age, an air of greater reality than the gentle complacency of the orthodox academics. Yet he, at the same time, is more encouraging than they, for he releases hope as well as terror from Pandora's box, while they preach only the gloomy doctrine that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

It's a terrible thing to be a worker exploited in the capitalist system. The only worse thing is to be a worker unable to find anyone to exploit you.

When I came up to Cambridge (in October 1921) to read economics, I did not have much idea of what it was about.

science progresses by trial and error, and when it is forbidden to admit error there can be no progress.

If there is any law governing the distribution of income between classes, it still remains to be discovered.

Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.