“As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.”

The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.

The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.

That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.

A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

In Germany, a new sect shall be born which shall renew ancient pagan times.

I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning. Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it’s always nice to know where you’re going is my theory.

It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.

Argentine political life is like the life of an ant community or an African forest tribe: full of events, full of crisis and deaths, but life is always cyclical, and the year ends as it begins.

It’s very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing. If you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you’ve got it half-made. I mean intellectually.

My mother, was perfectly horrified when I began shooting and tried to keep me in school, but I would run away and go quail shooting in the woods or trim my dresses with wreaths of wildflowers.

The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.

But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again.