There is likely to be a lag between the need for action and government ["an individual's" or "a team's"] recognition of the need; a further lag between recognition of the need for action and the taking of action; and a still further lag between the action and its effects

Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune.

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

There is not a line in 'The Wealth of Nations' that is not still applicable to this day.

Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp.

Humility is the distinguishing virtue of the believer in freedom; arrogance, of the paternalist.

If instead of looking at income, you look at levels of consumption, if anything that's become more equal. The fraction of families that have a dishwasher, that have a sewing machine, that have a television set. In respect to consumption, it's very hard to avoid the view that people have been getting more equal rather than more unequal.