Creativity is the foundation of wealth. All progress comes from the creative minority. Under capitalism, wealth is less a stock of goods than a flow of ideas, the defining characteristic of which is surprise. If it were not surprising, we could plan it, and socialism would work.

The key role of entrepreneurs, like the most crucial role of scientists, is not to fill in the gaps in an existing market or theory, but to generate entirely new markets or theories. . .They stand before a canvas as empty as any painter's; a page as blank as any poet's.

The crucial role of the rich in a capitalist economy is... to invest; to provide unencumbered and unbureaucratized cash.

The central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter. ...The powers of the mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.

[Successful] projects that entrepreneurs initiated and carried through had one essential quality. All had been thoroughly contemplated by the regnant experts and dominant companies, with their large research staffs and financial resources, and had been judged too difficult, untimely, risky, expensive and unprofitable.

Quality is abundant. Time is the new scarcity.

If government could create jobs and raise children, socialism would have worked.