Economics is first and foremost about the thoughts leading up to choice.

Economics is first and foremost about the thoughts leading up to choice.

Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears.

Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears.

The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a read more

The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a competition in the grabbing off of scarce nature-given supplies, as it is in the animal kingdom. Rather, it is a competition in the positive creation of new and additional wealth.

Most people...find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.

Most people...find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.

The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.

The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.

You cannot have the success without the failures.

You cannot have the success without the failures.

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer read more

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation "is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow." Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life.

Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a read more

Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow...

The world does not pay for what a person knows, but it pays for what a person does with what read more

The world does not pay for what a person knows, but it pays for what a person does with what he knows.