Quotes by Milton Friedman

Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

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.

The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Governments never learn. Only people learn.

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