552 Quotes by Milton Friedman

You must distinguish sharply between being pro free enterprise and being pro business.

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

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.

In the US, the problem is primary and secondary education. We've had such an increase in inequality because a quarter of American kids don't finish high school!

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

One role of prohibition is in making the drug market more lucrative.

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

Governments never learn. Only people learn.