The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the chaotic nature of certain ideas while acknowledging their impact.
John Maynard Keynes critiques a book that he finds poorly constructed, yet he recognizes that its flawed reasoning can still provoke thought and influence its readers. He illustrates how even erroneous beginnings can lead to profound conclusions, emphasizing the complexities of logic and understanding in philosophical discourse.
In practice
In a book club discussion, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of critically analyzing texts.
As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method of investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.
We will not have any more crashes in our time.
This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.
If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.
but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
Away with that folly that her rights would be detrimental to her character - that if she were recognized as the equal to a man she would cease to be a woman!
When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.
I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough.
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