Milton Friedman

"You must distinguish sharply between being pro-free enterprise and being pro-business."

"The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny."

"Prohibition didn't stop drinking. It did convert a lot of otherwise law-obedient citizens into lawbreakers."

"Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters' own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians."

"Spending on education has been skyrocketing, yet by common consent the quality of education has been declining."

"What we urgently need, for both economic stability and growth, is a reduction of government intervention not an increase."

"In this day and age, we need to revise the old saying to read, 'Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.'"

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

"It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both."

"Not all 'schooling' is 'education,' and not all 'education' is 'schooling.' Many highly schooled people are uneducated, and many highly 'educated' people are unschooled."

"Inflation is taxation without legislation."

"A stable and democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values."

"International free trade fosters harmonious relations among nations that differ in culture and institutions just as free trade at home fosters harmonious relations among individuals who differ in beliefs, attitudes, and interests."

"Freedom is threatened from two directions. One is the external threat coming from evil men in the Kremlin who promise to bury us. The other threat is the internal threat coming from men of good intentions who wish to reform us."

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

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."

"'Protection' really means exploiting the consumer."

"Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom."

"Money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers."

"I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government."