Milton Friedman

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

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

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

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

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

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

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.

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.

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

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

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

Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.

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

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.

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

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

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

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