Quotes on Economics

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.

Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies.

The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

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.

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

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

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

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

As for us, He has appointed the job of permanent unemployment. If he wanted us to work, after all, He would not have created this wine. With a skinfull of this, Sir, would you rush out to commit economics?