The atomic hypothesis which had worked so splendidly in Physics breaks down in Psychics. - John Maynard Keynes

Capitalism... is absolutely irreligious, without internal union, without much public spirit, often... a mere congeries of possessors and pursuers. Such a system has to be immensely, not merely moderately, successful to survive.

Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

As one broods over these queer collections, it seems easier to understand - with an understanding which is
not, I hope, distorted in the other direction - this strange spirit, who was tempted by the Devil to believe at
the time when within these walls he. was solving so much, that he could reach all the secrets of God and
Nature by the pure power of mind Copernicus and Faustus in one.