“Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.

If you cannot state a proposition clearly and unambiguously, you do not understand it.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

What makes it [economics] most fascinating is that its fundamental principles are so simple that they can be written on one page, that anyone can understand them, and yet very few do.

The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits.

A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.

Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters’ own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians.

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.

Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force.

You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

When you start paying people to be poor, you wind up with an awful lot of poor people.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term.

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.

I believe governments should take a more active role around important issues like balancing expression and safety.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

To govern was to serve, not to rule.