Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

What counts alone is the innovator, the dissenter, the harbinger of things unheard of, the man who rejects the traditional standards and aims at substituting new values and ideas for old ones.

The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.

The truth is that the government cannot give if it does not take from somebody...It is not in the power of the government to make everybody more prosperous.

One day, because they realize for some reason or other that they must stop credit expansion, the banks do stop creating new credit to lend. Then the firms that have expanded cannot get credit to pay for the factors of production necessary for the completion of the investment projects which they have already committed themselves. Because they cannot pay their bills, they sell off their inventories cheap. Then comes the panic, the breakdown. And the depression starts.

War...is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror.

Business is a means- the only means- to increase the quantity of goods available for preserving life and rendering it more agreeable.