John Kenneth Galbraith Quotes

When you try to create something different, there is always a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism, and I think this is fair.

The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time.

Progress of any kind is always at variance with the old and established ideas and therefore with the codes inspired by them. Every step of progress is a change involving heavy risks.

The greatest achievements of the human mind are generally received with distrust.

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

If you're not riddled with doubt, you've probably done something wrong.

Old things need not be therefore true, O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again!

In the age of revolution you have to be able to imagine revolutionary alternatives to the status quo. If you can't, you'll be relegated to the swollen ranks of keyboard-pounding automatons.

Assumption Theory: The only safe assumption in life is that the person who assures you that everything is all right is all wrong.

If there can be some paradigm shift thing that you can be part of, that's cool.

The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of skepticism.

You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting.

Reform has to be based on opening your mind and opening the mind does not come from decrees or laws. It comes from a whole set of circumstances, which if you do not have, anything you do will be not productive or will be counter-productive.

It is no sin to doubt some things, but it may be fatal to believe everything.

I'm excited and terrified to write something new.

We cannot innovate without opening the door to havoc.

we are, in this country, more open to new ideas. But we are also, it seems to me, more inclined to hail the new as absolute truth - until the next new comes along.

we can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion; cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for what's new. Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing.

Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one's imagination - perhaps more importantly - creativity is the power to act.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.

Imagination is all about new possibilities, eventualities that don't exist, counterfactuals, a recombination of elements in new ways. It is about the untested. And the untested is uncertain. It is frightening-even

Risk is an essential part of progress.

Entrepreneurship is the launching of surprises.

There is no improving the future without disturbing the present.

Lots of people were skeptical, but that's always true when you do something that hasn't been done before.