Quotes

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

"But the solution of these problems must be brought about under state leadership, and cannot be left to unregulated individual actions, which have a disturbing influence on the national economy, and which have therefore been repeatedly forbidden by governmental as well as Party agencies."

"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long."

"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good", The Wealth of Nations

"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good."

"It was wrong to allow Stalin to shape the European landscape of the 20th century. It would be even more wrong to let him shape the landscape of the 21st century."

"I certainly do assume that official decisions do not gain in honesty and moderation by being arrived at collectively; for apart from the fact that, in the case of voting by majority, arithmetic and chance take the place of logical reasoning, that feeling of personal responsibility, in which lies the essential guarantee for the conscientiousness of the decision, is lost directly it comes about by means of anonymous majorities", Reflections and Reminiscences (1898)

"It is only human nature to be more keenly sensitive to the thorns than to the roses of every institution, and that the thorns should irritate one against the existing state of things", Reflections and Reminiscences (1898)

"The primary function of the government is - and here I am quoting directly from the U.S. Constitution - 'to spew out paper.'"

"Ask not what the government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.”