A man who is good from docility, and not from stern self-control, has no character.

The quickest and surest way to production, prosperity, and economic growth is through private enterprise. The best way for governments to encourage private enterprise is to establish justice, to enforce contracts, to insure domestic peace and tranquility, to protect private property, and to secure the blessings of liberty including economic liberty - which means to stop putting obstacles in the way of private enterprise.

All subsidy measures, all schemes to redistribute income or to force Peter to support Paul, are one-eyed as well as shortsighted. They get their immediate appeal by focusing attention on the alleged needs of some particular group of intended beneficiaries. But the inevitable victims - those who are going to be asked to pay for the new handout in increased taxes (which directly or indirectly means almost everybody else) - are left out of account. Only one-half of the problem has been seen. The cost of the proposed solution has been overlooked.

Liberty is the essential basis, the sine qua non, of morality.

..either immediately or ultimately every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation. Once we look at the matter. In this way, the supposed miracles of government spending will appear in another light.

Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.

When any welfare scheme is being proposed, its political sponsors always dwell on what a generous and compassionate government should pay to Paul; they neglect to mention that this additional money must be seized from Peter.