Famous Quotes & Sayings

Molly Ivins

During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: “Look out! They're about to smack you around again!

Molly Ivins

The government can now delve into personal and private records of individuals even if they cannot be directly connected to a terrorist or foreign government. Bank records, e-mails, library records, even the track of discount cards at grocery stores can be obtained on individuals without establishing any connection to a terrorist before a judge. According to the Los Angeles Times, Al Qaeda uses sophisticated encryption devices freely available on the Internet that cannot be cracked. So the terrorists are safe from cyber-snooping, but we're not.

Molly Ivins

Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

Millicent Fenwick

You give bureaucrats power over others, and when the others are poor and helpless, nothing matches government. More than any single exploitive tyrannical force, the possibility of what government can do is absolutely terrifying.

Millicent Fenwick

The business of government is justice.

Millicent Fenwick

There is hardly a facet of life that is now free of some sort of federal action.

Millicent Fenwick

The only people who would be in government are those who care more about people than they do about power.

Millicent Fenwick

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

Milton Friedman

Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. He's always the special case. He ought to get special privileges from the government, a tariff, this, that and the other thing.

Milton Friedman

Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.

Milton Friedman

How did we make the transition from using wood to using coal, from using coal to using oil, from using oil to using natural gas? How in God's name did we make that transition without a Federal Energy Agency?

Milton Friedman

One of the reasons that I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government, industrialists take it over.

Milton Friedman

The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.

Milton Friedman

Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail. That is what we have done at one time or another to produce surpluses of wheat, of sugar, of butter, of many other commodities. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.

Milton Friedman

Anything that government can do, private enterprise can do for half the cost.

Milton Friedman

Government spends somebody else's money on somebody else.

Milton Friedman

How do you hold down government spending?

Milton Friedman

[T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.

Milton Friedman

I am a limited-government libertarian.

Milton Friedman

There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.

Milton Friedman

I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.

Milton Friedman

There's only one thing that all of the central banks control and that is the base, their own liability, and they can control that in various ways. They can control it directly by open market operations, buying and selling government securities or other assets, for example, buying and selling gold, or they can control it indirectly by altering the rate at which banks lend to one another.

Milton Friedman

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.

Milton Friedman

If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.

Milton Friedman

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

Milton Friedman

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

Milton Friedman

So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

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

If you spend your own money on yourself, you care how much you spend and how well you spend it. If you spend your own money on someone else, you care how much you spend, but you don't care how well it is spent. If you spend someone else's money on yourself, you don't care how much you spend, but you do care how well it is spent. And finally, if you spend someone else's money on someone else, you don't care how much you spend, and you don't care how well it is spent. That is government.

Milton Friedman

I'm not in favor of no government. You do need a government. But by doing so many things that the government has no business doing, it cannot do those things which it alone can do well. There's no other institution in my opinion that can provide us with protection of our life and liberty. However, the government performs that basic function poorly today, precisely because it is devoting too much of its efforts and spending too much of our income on things which are harmful. So I have no doubt that that's the major single problem we face.

Milton Friedman

The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the nineteenth century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.

Milton Friedman

The government doesn't have any money. The only power it has is to take from some and give to others.

Milton Friedman

The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rule of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.