Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

Quote by John Kenneth Galbraith

Topics: Politics Quotes, Speech Quotes

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

More die in the United States of too much food than of too little.

More die in the United States of too much food than of too little.

A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent. It has not been the...

A bad book is the worse that it cannot repent. It has not been the...

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not...

We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not...

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so...

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so...

Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is...

Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is...

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

Wisdom itself is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the...

Wisdom itself is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the...

We have escapist fiction, so why not escapist biography?

We have escapist fiction, so why not escapist biography?

Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then...

Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then...

Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them...

Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them...

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have...

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have...

It is a commonplace of modern technology that problems have solutions before there is knowledge...

It is a commonplace of modern technology that problems have solutions before there is knowledge...

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

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

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.

The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire...

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire...

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than...

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than...

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.