Quotes from Ludwig von Mises

If the government objects to monopoly prices for new inventions, it should stop granting patents.

Inflation is the true opium of the people and it is administered to them by anticapitalist governments and parties.

There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.

What economic calculation requires is a monetary system whose functioning is not sabotaged by government interference.

The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others.

It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary.

In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production

How pale is the art of sorcerers, witches, and conjurors when compared with that of the government's Treasury Department!

You call it a 'loophole' when the government still allows you some freedom.

[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics

The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and permanent calm.

History can tell us what happened in the past. But it cannot assert that it must happen again in the future.

Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens.

Rulers do not like to admit that their power is restricted by any laws other than those of physics and biology. They never ascribe their failures and frustrations to the violation of economic law.

What those people who ask for equality have in mind is always an increase in their own power to consume.

Big business depends entirely on the patronage of those who buy its products: the biggest enterprises loses its power and its influence when it loses its customers.

The market economy as such does not respect political frontiers. Its field is the world.

The productivity of social cooperation surpasses in every respect the sum total of the production of isolated individuals.

Men are fighting... because they are convinced that the extermination of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

Society is best served when the means of production are in the possession of those who know how to use them best.

Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production.

Innovation is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public.

The elimination of profit, whatever methods may be resorted to for its execution, must transform society into a senseless jumble. It would create poverty for all.