A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
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

Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.
Milton Friedman

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
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

Governments never learn. Only people learn.
Milton Friedman

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
Milton Friedman

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Milton Friedman

I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
Milton Friedman

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
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

Inflation is taxation without legislation.
Milton Friedman

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Milton Friedman

Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?
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

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
Milton Friedman

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
Milton Friedman

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
Milton Friedman

One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship.
Milton Friedman

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton Friedman