Notwithstanding all the passionate fulminations of the spokesmen of governments, the inevitable consequences of inflationism and expansionism...are coming to pass. And then, very late indeed, even simple people will discover that Keynes did not teach us how to perform the 'miracle...of turning a stone into bread,' but the not at all miraculous procedure of eating the seed corn.

What is lacking to the underdeveloped nations is not knowledge, but capital.

There is no reason why capitalists and entrepreneurs should be ashamed of earning profits.

No very deep knowledge of economics is usually needed for grasping the immediate effects of a measure; but the task of economics is to foretell the remoter effects, and so to allow us to avoid such acts as attempt to remedy a present ill by sowing the seeds of a much greater ill for the future.

The [liberals] consider profits as objectionable. The very existence of profits is in their eyes a proof that wage rates could be raised without harm to anybody. They speak of profit without dealing with loss. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities. A profitable enterprise tends to expand; an unprofitable one tends to shrink. The elimination of profit renders production rigid and abolishes the consumer's control.

What impels every man to the utmost exertion in the service of his fellow man. Is, in the market not compulsion on the part of gendarmes, hangmen and penal courts, it is self interest.

The first socialists were the intellectuals; they, and not the masses, are the backbone of Socialism.