We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.

The oldest [John Kenneth] Galbraith rule is that when you hear that a new era has dawned, you should take cover.

Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.

A wrong decision isn't forever; it can always be reversed. The losses from a delayed decision are forever; they can never be retrieved.

Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact.

The fully planned economy, so far from being unpopular, is warmly regarded by those who know it best.

In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well.