If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.

Nevertheless, if we contemplate a society with a somewhat stable wage-unit, with national characteristics which determine the propensity to consume and the preference for liquidity, and with a monetary system which rigidly links the quantity of money to the stock of the precious metals, it will be essential for the maintenance of prosperity that the authorities should pay close attention to the state of the balance of trade. For a favourable balance, provided it is not too large, will prove extremely stimulating; whilst an unfavourable balance may soon produce a state of persistent depression.

I know of only three people who really understand money. A professor at another university. One of my students. And a rather junior clerk at the Bank of England.

If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whilst by acting on the pessimistic hypothesis we can keep ourselves for ever in the pit of want.

The engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit.

In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.