Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2009-03-09 Mar 9, 2009Capitalism is not only a better form of organizing human activity than any deliberate design, any attempt to organize it to satisfy particular preferences, to aim at what people regard as beautiful or pleasant order, but it is also the indispensable condition for just keeping that population alive which exists already in the world. I regard the preservation of what is known as the capitalist system, of the system of free markets and the private ownership of the means of production, as an essential condition of the very survival of mankind.~ Friedrich August von HayekThe direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain's orders. The captain is the consumer. ...[Consumers] make poor people rich and rich people poor. They determine precisely what should be produced, in what quality, and in what quantities.~ Ludwig von MisesThe Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy. ... Roosevelt's policies were very destructive. Roosevelt's policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been.~ Milton Friedman Mar 6, 2009The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.~ Lord ActonThe preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.~ Milton FriedmanGovernment can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people. ~ Thomas Jefferson Mar 5, 2009An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-PérigordPower corrupts. But it does more than that. Power attracts the corrupt, then corrupts them further.~ Don MatthewsSociety is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness.~ Thomas Paine Mar 4, 2009In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.~ Alexander HamiltonGovernment does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else. ~ P. J. O'RourkeIf monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of government. I do not expect monopoly to restrain itself. If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.~ Woodrow Wilson Mar 3, 2009It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. ~ Calvin CoolidgeYou do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.~ Lyndon B. JohnsonMy reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. That government is best which governs least.~ Thomas Jefferson Mar 2, 2009History suggests that the cause of national decline is, as a rule, that the state in the nation concerned has sought to do too much rather than too little. This applies as much to the Roman Empire as to the Spanish. ~ Hugh ThomasGovernment has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.~ John C. CalhounBy far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments. The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments, that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.~ John Hospers Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print