“A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.”

Laissez faire does not mean: let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: let individuals choose how they want to cooperate in the social division of labor and let them determine what the entrepreneurs should produce.

The entrepreneur profits to the extent he has succeeded in serving the consumers better than other people have done.

This is what capitalism, the much abused profit system, has brought about and brings about daily anew. Yet, most present-day governments and political parties are eager to destroy this system.

The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation.

The philosophy underlying the system of progressive taxation is that the income and wealth of the well-to-do classes can be freely tapped.

There is but one means available to improve the material conditions of mankind: to accelerate the growth of capital accumulated as against the growth in population.

The riches of the rich are not the cause of the poverty of anybody; the process that makes some people rich is, on the contrary, the corollary of the process that improves many peoples want satisfaction.

Economics is not about things and tangible material objects; it is about men, their meanings and actions.

Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

Liberty is always freedom from the government.

The fundamental law of the market is: the customer is always right.

The entrepreneurs, the capitalists and the technologists prosper as far as they succeed in best supplying the consumers.

Economic progress is the work of the savers, who accumulate capital, and of the entrepreneurs, who turn capital to new uses.

The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote.

What pushes the masses into the camp of socialism is, even more than the illusion that socialism will make them richer, the expectation that it will curb all those who are better than they themselves are.

The standard of living of the common man is higher in those countries which have the greatest number of wealthy entrepreneurs.

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself.

The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.

You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual.

What’s the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it’s exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That’s really cool. That’s the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.