It is untrue that some are poor because others are rich. If an order of society in which incomes were equal replaced the capitalist order, everyone would become poorer.

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.

The luxury of today is the necessity of tomorrow. Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of a few rich people, only to become, after a time, an indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone. Luxury consumption provides industry with the stimulus to discover and introduce new, things. It is one of the dynamic factors in our economy. To it we owe the progressive innovations by which the standard of living of all strata of the population has been gradually raised.

The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.

Innovation is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public.

It is merely a metaphor to call competition competitive war, or simply, war. The function of battle is destruction; of competition, construction.

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs.