Milton Friedman

The price system transmits only the important information and only to the people who need to know.

Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", 15, 1980

I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.

Interview with on The Open Mind (7 December 1975), 1975

I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.

An Economist's Protest (1975), p. 6; often quoted as "The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.", 1975

So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

Interview "Milton Friedman Responds" in Chemtech (February 1974) p. 72., 1974

There was nothing in these views to repel a student; or to make Keynes attractive. Keynes had nothing to offer those of us who had sat at the feet of Simons, Mints, Knight, and Viner.

Milton Friedman, "Comments on the Critics", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 80, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1972), 1972

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. … A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.

The Counter-Revolution in Monetary Theory (1970) <!-- ( of Economic Affairs, 1970

I am convinced that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books—in its effect, not its intent.

p. 163, 1966

The contraction from 1929 to 1933 was by far the most severe business-cycle contraction during the near-century of U.S. history we cover and it may well have been the most severe in the whole of U.S. history.

"The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" (1963), with Anna J. Schwartz, 1963

The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the 'rule of the game' and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.

Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, p. 15, 1962

As liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements. Freedom as a value in this sense has to do with the interrelations among people

Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12, 1962

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 15, 1962

Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion—the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary co-operation of individuals—the technique of the market place.

Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, pp. 12-13, 1962

The basic problem of social organization is how to co-ordinate the economic activities of large numbers of people.

Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12, 1962

The construction of hypotheses is a creative act of inspiration, intuition, invention; its essence is the vision of something new in familiar material. The process must be discussed in psychological, not logical, categories; studied in autobiographies and biographies, not treatises on scientific method; and promoted by maxim and example, not syllogism or theorem.

"The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953), 1953

If we are to use effectively these abstract models and this descriptive material, we must have a comparable exploration of the criteria for determining what abstract model it is best to use for particular kinds of problems, what entities in the abstract model are to be identified with what observable entities, and what features of the problem or of the circumstances have the greatest effect on the accuracy of the predictions yielded by a particular model or theory.

"The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953), 1953