“There’s no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn’t exist.”

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.

With respect to teachers’ salaries …. Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.

If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don’t be surprised if you get unemployment.

The word ‘free’ is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with ‘freedom.’ The word ‘fair’ is not used in either of our founding documents.