Our complete set of random free market quotes:
"One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self. "
-- Brihaspati, Mahabharata (Anusasana Parva, Section CXIII, Verse 8) [Hindu Teaching ~3200 BC]
"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. "
-- Talmud, Shabbat 31a, the "Great Principle"
"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. "
-- Confucius ~500 BC Chinese Philosopher (Analects XV.24)
"...the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes..."
-- Pericles (c. 495 - 429 BC) Greek Statesman, Thucydides Book II
"Pride comes before a fall."
-- Proverbs 16:18
"Make a habit of two things - to help, or at least to do no harm."
-- Hippocrates (460 BC - 370 BC) Greek "Father of Medicine"
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
-- Plato (428 BC - 347 BC) Greek Philosopher
"Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone. "
-- Zhuangzi (c. 369 B.C. - 286 B.C.) Chinese Philosopher
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. "
-- Jesus ~30 AD [Luke 6:31]
"As you sow so shall you reap."
-- Galatians 6:7
"We grant to all persons the unrestricted power to defend themselves, so that it is proper to subject anyone, whether a private person or a soldier, who trespasses upon fields at night in search of plunder, or lays by busy roads plotting to assault passers-by, to immediate punishment in accordance with the authority granted to all."
-- The Code of Justinianus 3.27.1, 529 A.D.
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
-- Popular words of wisdom, origin unknown
"...to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony..."
-- The Mayflower Compact (11 November, 1620)
"All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws."
-- Voltaire (1694 - 1778) French Philosopher
"Every individual... by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. "
-- Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) Scottish philosopher
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens."
-- Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) Scottish philosopher
"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) American President
"In matters of principle, stand like a rock. "
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) American President
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
-- The Declaration of Independence of the United States, July 4, 1776
"Whereas it hath been found by experience that limitations upon the prices of commodities are not only ineffectual for the purpose proposed, but likewise productive of very evil consequences--resolved, that it be recommended to the several states to repeal or suspend all laws limiting, regulating or restraining the Price of any Article."
-- The Continental Congress of the United States, June 4, 1778
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
-- Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 1791
"Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property."
-- Frederique Bastiat (1801 - 1850) French economist and member of the French assembly
"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone."
-- Frederique Bastiat (1801 - 1850) French economist and member of the French assembly
"When goods cannot cross borders, armies will."
-- Frederique Bastiat (1801 - 1850) French economist and member of the French assembly
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
-- Frederique Bastiat (1801 - 1850) French economist and member of the French assembly
"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."
-- John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) English philosopher and economist
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-- Lord Acton (1834 - 1902) English historian
"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end."
-- Lord Acton (1834 - 1902) English historian
"Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do."
-- Pope Pius XI (1857 - 1939)
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
-- George Santayana (1863 - 1952) Spanish-American Philosopher
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
-- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) German-American Nobel Laureate Physicist
"All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out."
-- Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973) Austrian School economist
"Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand."
-- Friedrich von Hayek (1899 - 1992) Austrian-British Nobel Laureate Economist
"Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: 'No man should have so much.' The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: 'All men should have as much.'"
-- Phelps Adams (1902 - 1991) American journalist
"Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal."
-- Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
"Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society."
-- Lewis Powell, Jr. (1907 - 1998) American Supreme Court Justice
"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 - 2004) American President
"All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital -- ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 - 2004) American President
"Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property."
-- Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006) American Nobel Laureate economist
"What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system."
-- Milton Friedman (1912 - 2006) American Nobel Laureate economist
"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 - 1963) American President
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 - 1963) American President
"To withhold the equal protection of the laws, is to undermine the entire structure and threaten it with collapse.... To deny law or justice to any person is, in actual effect, to outlaw them by stripping them of their only protection. It is for such reasons that freedom and equality of justice are essential to a democracy and that denial of justice is the short cut to anarchy."
-- Reginald Heber Smith ~1919 American Lawyer
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
-- Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ) British Prime Minister
"If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist."
-- Bernie Sanders, United States Senator (1941 - )
"There is no such thing as a free lunch."
-- an editorial in The Long Beach Independent, October 1943
"While it might surprise many ecologists to hear, capitalism is itself the ultimate form of conservationism. Capitalists seek to conserve resources, not because of sentimental feelings about nature or the earth or whales or worry about the well-being of future generations, but simply because every drop of oil, every ton of ore, every shipment of wood saved is a cost reduction and money in the pocket."
-- Steven E Plaut (1951 - ) Israeli economist
"The tragedy of the commons ... is averted by private property"
-- Garrett Hardin (1915-2003) American Ecologist and author of Tragedy of the Commons
"private property plus inheritance is unjust but we put up with it because we are not convinced, at the moment, that anyone has invented a better system. The alternative of the commons is too horrifying to contemplate. Injustice is preferable to total ruin."
-- Garrett Hardin (1915-2003) American Ecologist and author of Tragedy of the Commons