John Maynard Keynes Quotes

Thus in the Old World also the production of wealth must be increased, but this enterprise is far more difficult in Europe than in America. The population of Europe is much more dense than in the New World: a portion of its lands is exhausted: the great number of political subdivisions, and the multiplicity of tongues, increase enormously the difficulties in the way of business on a great scale. Traditions handed down from the time when men toiled to produce slowly and in small quantities things shaped toward a far distant ideal of perfection are still strong among its people.

It never occurred to me that we would have as grandiose a program as the Marshall Plan, but I felt that we had to do something to save Europe from economic disaster which would encourage the Communist takeover.

Can you persuade people to take your side when you are not sure in the end whether you'll be there to take theirs?

It is clear that the original idea of the Iranians [to produce nuclear weapons] has been stopped by this agreement.

The conservation of monarchy in any portion of South America will tend to break the shock of that inevitable divorce by which the New World is about to be divided by the Old... But as to putting it forward, as a project or proposition of ours, that is out of the question. Monarchy in Mexico, and monarchy in Brazil, would cure the evils of universal democracy, and prevent the drawing of the line which I almost dread – America versus Europe. The United States, naturally enough, aim at this division and cherish the democracy which leads to it.

In the event of a victory over Germany by Soviet Russia and England, Bolshevism in Europe would inevitably follow. Under these circumstances I would prefer to see Germany win the war. I feel that an understanding could be reached (with Germany) which would result in a lasting peace with Europe and believe that a German victory is preferable to a British and Soviet victory.

The Germans were very arrogant and insolent and … this infuriated the allied delegates…. I am rather glad that they have stirred him up, so that he may keep stern with them to the very end. If they had been submissive & cowed he might have been sorry for them.

The Press is reducing everything that is noblest and impressive in modern life into terms of Press photographs and Press interviews. In fact they try to dominate everything. How can you concentrate on the solemnity of a scene when you have men with cameras in every direction, whose sole object is to get as near as they can to the central figures? How can you be impressed as much as you would like to be by what is said, when you know that all round you are people taking notes, and that the people who are speaking know that they are taking notes. One or two reporters, for the sake of preserving a record, would not be so bad. But they have to be dealt with in armies nowadays. The Press is destroying all romance, all solemnity, all majesty. They are as unscrupulous as they are vulgar.

I must give a most emphatic warning, in the interest of our common cause, of the grave danger with which further delay in opening a second front in France is fraught

We have recently seen what happens to international treaties and the most sacred of covenants when they do not suit the purpose of Imperialism. We have seen these treaties torn up, friends and allies basely deserted and betrayed and the pledged word broken by England and France. Democracy and freedom were the sufferers and so it did not matter. But when reaction and autocracy and imperialism stand to lose, it does matter and treaties, however moth-eaten and harmful to the people they might be, have to be preserved.

[To Americans] diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interwar period, appeasement of Fascism.

It becomes not us, if we value the characters of our forefathers; it becomes not the civilized nations of Europe who have had American possessions, to inveigh against the merciless conduct of the savage (Scalping). His appetite for blood was sharpened and whetted by European instigation, and his cupidity was enlisted on the side of cruelty by every temptation. In the wars between France and England and their colonies, their Indian allies were entitled to a premium for every scalp of an enemy. In the war preceding 1703, the government of Massachusetts gave twelve pounds for every Indian scalp; in that year the premium was raised to forty pounds, but in 1722 it was augmented to one hundred pounds.

Has France absolutely decided to refuse us all succor, and thus become the victim of England and the laughingstock of Europe? ... We offer France in return for secret assistance a treaty of commerce which will secure to her for a certain number of years after the peace all the benefits with which for a century we have enriched England

You should never make alliances with a decadent nation like France and a semi-barbarous nation like Russia

In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

The whole of this talk about America being more devoted to money than Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, or any other nation is nonsense.

We desire to see France paid and Germany revived, and as the creditor of Europe we would not wish to assume the role of an oppressive creditor, but would maintain the principle that financial obligations between nations are likewise moral obligations, which international faith and honor require should be discharged.

… After the violent shocks suffered by the different parts of the world during 10 years of devastating warfare, unparalleled in human history, the old political structure has been destroyed. A new one must be built in its place, resting on foundations strong enough to be able to withstand the assaults of force and oppression.

I now seriously ask whether an English victory would not be more desirable for our future than a German victory.

As once upon a time the Turkish peril was halted by the walls of the city of Vienna, so does the maintenance of order and economic well-being in Austria, which is the center of Europe, constitute a dam to prevent the west from being flooded by the gospel of Bolshevism which now threatens from Moscow.

The American War must immediately appear to you a subject of historical curiosity. By the event of that war, an independent empire has arisen, boundless in extent, and removed from the reach of the arms---secure at least from the invasions of Europe; beginning its career with such ad-vantages as our communities in the old world never possessed; beginning almost from the point to which they have but arrived in the progress of nearly two thousand years.

The French, in 1763, gave up Canada rather than Guadeloupe to the British, who accepted the former instead of the latter with hesitating reluctance.

In the view of this Government there cannot be any common ground upon which it can stand with a Power whose conceptions of international relations are so entirely alien to its own, so utterly repugnant to its moral sense. There can be no mutual confidence or trust, no respect even, if pledges are to be given and agreements made with a cynical repudiation of their obligations already in the mind of one of the parties. We cannot recognize, hold relations with, or give friendly receptions to the agents of a Government which is determined and bound to conspire against our institutions, whose diplomats will be the agitators of dangerous revolt, whose spokesmen say that they sign agreements with no intention of keeping them.

Force may destroy Batavia, we shall never betray her. We are exhausted. Just two precious treasures remain to us for the future: the credit and the morality of her people … That must be the guarantee of the alliance … misery we may support but slavery never.

Throughout 1922 the demand for further occupation of the Ruhr became stronger in France, the people being convinced that in no other way could the Germans be made to understand that the Allies were determined to collect reparations.