“None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important.”

“John Kenneth Galbraith and Marshall McLuhan are the two greatest modern Canadians that the U.S. has produced.”

“Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.”

“In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.”

“By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.”

“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.”

“Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.”

“We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.”

“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”

“Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.”

“There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.”