"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
- excerpt from atlas shrugged
"With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens -- a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
-- Thomas Jefferson, from his First Inaugural Address
The government is good at one thing...it knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say 'see if it weren't for the government you wouldn't be able to walk.'"
- Harry Browne
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. But... the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won." -Ayn Rand
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
-Ayn Rand
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.
-Ayn Rand
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
-Ayn Rand
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
-Adam Smith
I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
Milton Friedman
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
Milton Friedman
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
Milton Friedman
Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
Milton Friedman
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
Milton Friedman
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
Milton Friedman
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton Friedman
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.
Lao Tzu
