Now that I’m 60, every morning I look in the mirror and say, “I don’t know who you are, stranger, but I’m gonna shave you anyway.” – Milton Friedman US presidential speechwriter.
Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive. – Milton Friedman
And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you’ll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? – Milton Friedman
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless. – Milton Friedman
Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it… gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. – Milton Friedman
Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. – Milton Friedman
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government. – Milton Friedman
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. – Milton Friedman
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. – Milton Friedman
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit. – Milton Friedman
So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. – Milton Friedman
The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people. – Milton Friedman
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes. – Milton Friedman
The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. – Milton Friedman
The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. – Milton Friedman
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government. – Milton Friedman
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. – Milton Friedman
The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience. – Milton Friedman
The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that’s why it’s so essential to preserving individual freedom. – Milton Friedman
