Catalina > Catalina's Quotes

“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
― Milton Friedman

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
― Milton Friedman

“Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons”
― Milton Friedman

“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.”
― Milton Friedman

“Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. 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 the free-enterprise system.”
― Milton Friedman

“There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.”
― Pierre Dos Utt, Tanstaafl: A Plan for a New Economic World Order

“The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both”
― Milton Friedman

“The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
― Milton Friedman

“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

“Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.”
― Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”
― Thomas Sowell

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
― Thomas Sowell, Is Reality Optional? And Other Essays

“The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”
― Thomas Sowell, Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays

“What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?”
― Thomas Sowell

“The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders. ”
― Thomas Sowell

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”
― Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions

“Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.”
― Walter E. Williams

“Perché mi chiamate ladro? Per qualche miserabile furto? Per qualche miserabile crimine? Se, come voi, avessi avuto un esercito per masscrare I popoli e saccheggiare le ricchezze altrui, mi chiamereste maestà!”
― Jean Teulé, Je, François Villon

“Che follia! Tu sei il padrone del tuo destino e credi di esserne la vittima!”
― Jean Teulé, Je, François Villon

“Are you familiar," he said finally, "with the Bang?"
"The Big Bang?" Luka asked. "Or some other Bang I don't know about?"
"There was only one Bang," said Nobodaddy, "so the adjective Big is redundant and meaningless. The Bang would only be Big if there was at least one other Little or Medium-Sized or even Bigger Bang to compare it with, and to differentiate it from.”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“Because if the whole universe could just explode out of Nothing and then just Be, don't you see that the opposite could also be true? That it is possible to implode and Un-Be as well as to explode and Be? That it's possible to implode and Un-Be as well as to explode and Be? That all human beings, Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, or the emperor Akbar, or Angelina Jolie or your father, could simply return to Nothing once they're...done? In a sort of Little, by which I mean personal, Un-Bang?”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“The Fire Bug flared up at that. “You want to know what bugs me?” it said indignantly. “Nobodaddy’s friendly about fire. Oh, it’s fine in its place, people say, it makes a nice glow in a room, but keep an eye on it in case it gets out of control, and always put it out before you leave. Never mind how much it’s needed; a few forests burned by wildfires, the occasional volcanic eruption, and there goes our reputation. Water, on the other hand!—hah!—there’s no limit to the praise Water gets. Floods, rains, burst pipes, they make no difference. Water is everyone’s favorite. And when they call it the Fountain of Life!—bah!—well, that just bugs me to bits.” The Fire Bug dissolved briefly into a little cloud of angry, buzzing sparks, then came together again. “Fountain of Life, indeed,” it hissed. “What an idea. Life is not a drip. Life is a flame. What do you imagine the sun is made of? Raindrops? I don’t think so. Life is not wet, young man. Life burns.”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“Gli astri non credono a niente!" dicono con le loro stridule vocine gli uomini della terra. "Per fortuna ci siamo noi che crediamo in loro!
"Solo noi astri sappiamo che il cielo è vuoto!", risponde con il suo vocione la luna che fugge via nel vuoto.”
― Jean Teulé, Rainbow pour Rimbaud

“It seems there is no such thing as a purely good deed, a completely right action. Even this task, which i took on for the very best of reasons, involves making choices that are not that "good", choices that might even be "wrong".”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“People think they are all sort of things they aren't' he had sad. 'They think they are talented when they're not; they think they're powerful when they're actually just bullies; they think they're good when they're bad. People fools themselves all the time, and they don't know that they're fools”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.”
― Anaïs Nin, A Spy in the House of Love