Quotes - by Milton Friedman

1. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
2. I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
3. 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.
4. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
5. We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
6. We don't have a desperate need to grow. We have a desperate desire to grow.
7. With respect to teachers' salaries - Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
8. If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can only gain at the expense of another.
9. History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
10. Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
11. Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
12. There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income. – Fox News interview 2004