Quotes by Ludwig von Mises

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

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

“Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire.”

“Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer”

“War... is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror.”

“When we call a capitalist society a consumers democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers ballot, held daily in the marketplace.”

“The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.”

“If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.”

“The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.”

“Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.”

Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what is beautiful and what is not. They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, the writers and artists of the future should comply. But the genius does not cooperate with the pundit.

The biological equipment of a man rigidly restricts the field in which he can serve.

Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental abilities and the prevailing state of scientific thought.

The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.

Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible.

If one prevents a man from working for the good of society while at the same time providing for the satisfaction of his own needs, then only one way remains open to him: to make himself richer and others poorer by the violent oppression and spoliation of his fellow men.

Against what is stupid, nonsensical, erroneous, and evil, [classical] liberalism fights with the weapons of the mind, and not with brute force and repression.

In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.

It is the consumers who make poor people rich and rich people poor.

Socialism is an alternative to capitalism as potassium cyanide is an alternative to water.