The ideas by which people . . . interpret their existence and in measure guide their behavior, were not forged in a world of wealth.

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action of the machine we have created to serve us.

Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his economic policies have been tried.

Consumer wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying wants that create the wants.

If we were not in Vietnam, all that part of the world would be enjoying the obscurity it so richly deserves.

The commencement speech is not, I think, a wholly satisfactory manifestation of our culture.

The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.