“Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will.”

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

The Welfare State is merely a method for transforming the market economy step by step into socialism.

The causes of all panics, crashes and depressions can be summed up in only four words: the misuse of credit.

The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.

Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves. Capitalism delivers the goods.

What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning.

The truth is that most people lack the intellectual ability and courage to resist a popular movement, however pernicious and ill-considered.

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.

The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning.

Whoever neglects to examine to the best of his abilities all the problems involved voluntarily surrenders his birthright to a selfappointed elite of supermen.

A higher standard of living also brings about a higher standard of culture and civilization.

The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.

Economic prosperity is not so much a material problem; it is, first of all, an intellectual, spiritual, and moral problem.

Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things.

The life before ’68 was very different from the life after ’68. Before ’68, our days were full of authoritarian moments. There were authorities everywhere. In fact, the movement of ’68 was young people against their authorities, children against their parents. And that remained.

Planning other people’s actions means to prevent them from planning for themselves, means to deprive them of their essentially human quality, means enslaving them.

How could I stand the separation from family and friends? It is ironic, I say, that in an authoritarian state it is only the prisoner of conscience who is genuinely free. Yes, we have given up our right to a normal life. But we have stayed true to that most precious part of our humanity-our conscience.

A part of society in our countries would still prefer an authoritarian regime today. These are people with the mentality of Homo sovieticus. But they also exist in France – just think of Le Pen – and even in Finland and Sweden.