Quotes to inspire and reflect

When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover.

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.

People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.

In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.

Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths.

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.

It has been the acknowledged right of every Marxist scholar to read into Marx the particular meaning that he himself prefers and to treat all others with indignation.

War remains the decisive human failure.

The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

Economists are economical, among other things, of ideas; most make those of their graduate days last a lifetime.

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

A liberal is a man too broad minded to take his own side in a quarrel.

The best things and the best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.

There are only middles.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That's voting.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

If you knew you could not fail

How many things would you attempt

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.

The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual.

When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union—like public housing in the United States—look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.

Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.

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.

Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been. … And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold.

There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

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

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

Governments never learn. Only people learn.

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

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

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

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.

Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least you will, by such conduct, stand the be.

Without Freedom of thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of speech.

Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends.

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.