Milton Friedman

What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will.

Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending, because that’s the true tax.

The most harm of all is done when power is in the hands of people who are absolutely persuaded of the purity of their instincts and intentions.

It’s so hard for people to get out of the notion that life is a zero-sum game. They think if one man benefits, another must lose. But in a free market, both people can benefit.

Higher taxes will not reduce the deficit, except for a brief interval. They will simply increase government spending. That is the lesson taught by past experiences.

Higher taxes of any kind, direct or indirect, are bad economics and even worse politics.

If you pay people not to work and tax them when they do, don't be surprised if you get unemployment.

Human and political freedom has never existed and cannot exist without a large measure of economic freedom.

Daise the wage of airline pilots, and air travel will become more expensive. Fewer people will fly, and there will be fewer jobs for airline pilots.

The programs that are labeled as being for the poor, for the needy, almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors intend them to have.

There is one thing that you can trust everybody to do, and that is to put his interest above yours.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

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

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

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

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Inflation is taxation without legislation.