One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship.

- Milton Friedman

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

- Milton Friedman

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?

- Milton Friedman

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

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

- Milton Friedman

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

- Milton Friedman

The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

- 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.

- Milton Friedman

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

- Milton Friedman

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

- Milton Friedman

Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.

- 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 of 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?

- Milton Friedman

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

- Milton Friedman

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

- Milton Friedman

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.

- Milton Friedman

Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

- Milton Friedman

Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

- Milton Friedman

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

- Milton Friedman

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.

- Milton Friedman