The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher - in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light ofthe past for the purposes of the future

Investment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.

The 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.

I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

It is a good thing to make mistakes so long as you're found out quickly.

I should have drunk more Champagne.

Experience shows that what happens is always the thing against which one has not made provision in advance.