“With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.”

The growing role that the government has played in financing and administering schooling has led not only the enormous waste of taxpayers money but also to a far poorer educational system.

In the 1960s, The National Education Association changed its character. The NEA changed into a union. And from that point on you can see deterioration in the quality of schooling in the United States.

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn’t do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn’t do a thing for them.

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was by far the greatest. Because he had real principles and he stuck by them. He made clear what he was going to do, and he did it. He didn’t back down.

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken.

Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.

A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.

Society doesn’t have values. People have values.

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.

I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

You know there are very few Marxists left in the world they’re all in American universities.

Every person shall be free to do good at his own expense.

The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities.

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.

Knowledge is a tangible asset, quite often the most important tool in your work.

An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.

The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me.

I am convinced that companies should put staff first, customers second and shareholders third – ultimately that’s in the best interest of customers and shareholders.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional.