“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.

Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.

Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

Failure is part of the natural cycle of business. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward.

The history of which peoples, nations, or civilizations have conquered or enslaved which other peoples, nations, or civilizations has been largely a history of who has been in a position to do so.

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.

Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.

One of the first things taught in introductory statistics textbooks is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.

If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.

No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.

One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.

Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

I don’t think most of Congress understands how economics works.

Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise–a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.

In today’s competitive economy, to stand still is to die.

It seems to me self-evident that we cannot have capitalism without capital and, very importantly, that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital

What we are going to do as Democrats is put together a really strong platform that focuses on jobs and economic issues.

The financial markets play an active role in determining what’s going to happen, how the economy is going to function.

The people who are filing for bankruptcy in increasing numbers every year, it’s not the poorest. It’s not the people at the economic fringes. It’s people who worked hard and played by the rules.