Milton Friedman

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

When government in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.

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

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

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

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.

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

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

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

Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

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

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.

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

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