John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes on Belief
-
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
-
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
-
Among all the world's races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.
-
The traveler to the United States will do well, however, to prepare himself for the class-consciousness of the natives. This differs from the already familiar English version in being more extreme and based more firmly on the conviction that the class to which the speaker belongs is inherently superior to all others.
-
Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.
-
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.
-
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.