Milton Friedman – 27 Quotes

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27 Quotes by 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 only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

– Milton Friedman


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

– Milton Friedman


Inflation is taxation without legislation.

– Milton Friedman


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


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


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

– 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


Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

– Milton Friedman


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

– Milton Friedman


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

– Milton Friedman


Governments never learn. Only people learn.

– 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


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 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


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


The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

– Milton Friedman


The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

– Milton Friedman


The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.

– 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


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


Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

– Milton Friedman


The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

– Milton Friedman


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

– Milton Friedman


Well first of all, tell me, is there some society you know of that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed?

– Milton Friedman


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