Freedom Quotes by Ludwig von Mises

Freedom and liberty always mean freedom from police interference.

— Ludwig von Mises

Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power.

— Ludwig von Mises

Liberty is always freedom from the government.

— Ludwig von Mises

Against nature and within nature there is no freedom.

— Ludwig von Mises

“More dangerous than bayonets and cannon are the weapons of the mind.”

— Ludwig von Mises

Freedom really means the freedom to make mistakes.

— Ludwig von Mises

Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

— Ludwig von Mises

Nobody is in a position to decree what should make a fellow man happier.

— Ludwig von Mises

What mankind needs today is liberation from the rule of nonsensical slogans and a return to sound reasoning.

— Ludwig von Mises

The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom…

— Ludwig von Mises

The member of a contractual society is free because he serves others only in serving himself. What restrains him is only the…

— Ludwig von Mises

The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles…

— Ludwig von Mises

Western civilization is based upon the libertarian principle, and all its achievements are the results of the action of free men.

— Ludwig von Mises

Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.

— Ludwig von Mises

There is no kind of freedom and liberty other than the kind which the market economy brings about.

— Ludwig von Mises

“Every step which leads from capitalism toward planning is necessarily a step nearer to absolutism and dictatorship.”

— Ludwig von Mises

...this remedy is the power of the citizens; they have to prevent the establishment of such an autocratic regime that arrogates to…

— Ludwig von Mises

It is completely in accord with the etatist thinking prevalent everywhere today to consider a theory to be finally disposed of merely…

— Ludwig von Mises

The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the…

— Ludwig von Mises

“Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father…

— Ludwig von Mises

The market economy is the social system of the division of labor under private ownership of the means of production. Everybody acts…

— Ludwig von Mises

Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. Government is a guarantor of liberty and is…

— Ludwig von Mises

Profits are the driving force of the market economy. The greater the profits, the better the needs of the consumers are supplied...…

— Ludwig von Mises

The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the armed defenders of peace, the governors and their constables.…

— Ludwig von Mises

If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or…

— Ludwig von Mises

As the liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty,…

— Ludwig von Mises

If we live our lives as a gift it is possible to reach a blissful state of eternal happiness. It is those…

— Ludwig von Mises

Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation…

— Ludwig von Mises

“When, thirty-five years ago, I tried to give a summary of the ideas and principles of that social philosophy that was once…

— Ludwig von Mises

The so-called liberals of today have the very popular idea that freedom of speech, of thought, of the press, freedom of religion,…

— Ludwig von Mises

“Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new…

— Ludwig Von Mises

The men who are to protect the community against violent aggression easily turn into the most dangerous aggressors. They transgress their mandate.…

— Ludwig von Mises

“As regards the social apparatus of repression and coercion, the government, there cannot be any question of freedom. Government is essentially the…

— Ludwig von Mises

You call it a 'loophole' when the government still allows you some freedom.

— Ludwig von Mises

Government is essentially the negation of liberty.

— Ludwig von Mises

Planning other people's actions means to prevent them from planning for themselves, means to deprive them of their essentially human quality, means…

— Ludwig von Mises

“The welfare of a people lies not in casting other peoples down but in peaceful collaboration.”

— Ludwig von Mises

As soon as the economic freedom which the market economy grants to its members is removed, all political liberties and bills of…

— Ludwig von Mises

There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.

— Ludwig von Mises

The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its…

— Ludwig von Mises