He is rich who owes nothing.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.

When even one American, who has done nothing wrong, is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.

Fundamentally, there are only to ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation — the technique of the marketplace.

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

Free choice is the greatest gift God gives to his children.

Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary rule of another man.

The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

The most popular labor-saving device is still money.

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money to do more for the betterment of life.

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money but him who does it for love of it.

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the “common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity.

To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship…the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Oh! poverty is a weary thing, 'tis full of grief and pain; it keepeth down the soul of man, as with an iron chain.