“There is one and only one responsibility of business: to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.”

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.

Governments never learn. Only people learn.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ‘ that there is no alternative.

There’s nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.

A free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.

Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.

Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

You never can cure poverty. Poverty is in the eye of the beholder.

The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.

The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can’t do that.

There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.

The government doesn’t have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union – like public housing in the United States – look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.

In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship.

We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.

Government is the people’s business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.

When we point to obstacles we inhibit progress. When we offer solutions we advance.

The competition between me and Bill Gates, probably: Who can spend money more effectively that can do better philanthropy.

It is important for young entrepreneurs to be adequately self-aware to know what they do not know.

I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.

If you actually do something you love it’s a lot easier and takes on a lot more purpose.