The purpose of a politician is to be a leader. A politician has to lead. Otherwise he's just a follower.

The success of a society is to be evaluated primarily by the freedoms that members of the society enjoy.

Until the L.A. market is settled, I don't think there's any other market out there that stands a chance.

The true test of a brilliant theory [is] what first is thought to be wrong is later shown to be obvious.

I was always a data guy, not a theorist. Theorists can maintain total purity. The data are always messy.

In the typical economic recovery, a resurgent housing sector helps fuel reemployment and rising incomes.

If stocks double but the dollar loses half its value, who beyond Wall Street are the winners and losers?

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

Trade barriers constitute isolation; isolation gives rise to hatred, hatred to war, and war to invasion.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the other forms.

It's appropriate for the Fed to gradually and cautiously increase our overnight interest rate over time.

A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.

The longer you wait, the less fun. If you wait until the bitter end, the whole economy can be destroyed.

Unequal distribution of income is an excessively uneconomic method of getting the necessary saving done.

science progresses by trial and error, and when it is forbidden to admit error there can be no progress.

One might argue that proper understanding of any social situation would require game-theoretic analysis.

Originality is something that is easily exaggerated, especially by authors contemplating their own work.

For the sake of The Progressive, I will say that [Robert] La Follette was relevant, but he was the last.

Embarrassingly for Obama, it appeared that his administration had jumped the gun on banning the bullets.

When public policy is directed toward urban spaces, it is directed toward people who sit at the margins.

The Bush boom is alive and well. It's finishing up its sixth splendid year with many more years to come.

Another is, if you take money out of your left pocket and put it in your right pocket, you're no richer.

The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ' that there is no alternative

Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.

The State thrives on war - unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed - expands on it, glories in it.

The neoconservative ideology supports American financial and military-political imperialism or hegemony.

Our wealth is rewarded directly in proportion to the number of people with whom we are willing to share.

If governments want to encourage good citizenship, they should try making the desired behavior more fun.

Why does a public discussion of economic policy so often show the abysmal ignorance of the participants?

Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.

People have a vested interest in promoting one set of polices rather than finding out what the truth is.

How you treat the helpless is the real test of morality. Lots of people are flunking that test big time.

Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius.

All too often, we do smart things only after exhausting every conceivable dumb thing we could have done.

If the way of heaven be narrow, it is not long; and if the gate be straight, it opens into endless life.

For every Seaman of Industry and Ingenuity, is not only a Navigator, but a Merchant, and also a Soldier.

Again, most of the chief distinctions marked by economic terms are differences not of kind but of degree.

There are few subjects that match the social significance of women's education in the contemporary world.

The truth of the matter of is that stimulus money not only doesn't stimulate; it actually reduces output.

Taxes are not trivial - they're a huge portion of this overall economy. And that's why I focused on them.

The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being.

Giving people like Dodd and Frank more authority is like rewarding an arsonist with gasoline and matches.

Reducing every issue to an argument can become stale but it's often a very good way of clarifying issues.

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

A [Donald] Trump win might be bad for stocks, but it would be very positive for the dollar and Treasurys.

I met my wife, Margaret L. Mack, at the University of Chicago. We were married in 1936. She died in 1970.

It Is in the Agricultural Sector That the Battle for Long- Term Economic Development Will Be Won or Lost.

When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened a while ago.

Nonrenewable resources should be exploited, but at a rate equal to the creation of renewable substitutes.

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