Liberty Quotes by Ludwig von Mises

Liberty is always freedom from the government.

— Ludwig von Mises

Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

— 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

Government is essentially the negation of liberty.

— Ludwig von Mises

Aggressors cannot wage total war without introducing Socialism.

— Ludwig von Mises

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

— Ludwig von Mises

The philosophy commonly called individualism is a philosophy of social cooperation and the progressive intensification of the social nexus.

— Ludwig von Mises

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

— 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

What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you.

— Ludwig von Mises

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

— Ludwig von Mises

For it is an essential difference between capitalist and socialist production that under capitalism men provide for themselves, while under Socialism they…

— Ludwig von Mises

[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws…

— Ludwig von Mises

The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production.…

— Ludwig von Mises

This dilettantish inability to comprehend the essential issues of the conduct of production affairs is not only manifested in the writings of…

— Ludwig von Mises

The law-abiding citizen by his labor serves both himself and his fellow man and thereby integrates himself peacefully into the social order.…

— Ludwig von Mises

The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize…

— Ludwig von Mises

It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised…

— Ludwig von Mises

When we call a capitalist society a consumers democracy we mean that the power to dispose of the means of production, which…

— 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

Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and…

— 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

The interventionists do not approach the study of economic matters with scientific disinterestedness. Most of them are driven by an envious resentment…

— 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

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by…

— Ludwig von Mises

The real bosses in the capitalist system of market economy are the consumers. They by their buying and by their abstention from…

— 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

The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production.…

— Ludwig von Mises

The "progressives" who today masquerade as "liberals" may rant against "fascism"; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism.…

— Ludwig von Mises

The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what…

— Ludwig von Mises

As the science of economics...exploded the fallacies of every brand of utopianism, it was outlawed and stigmatized as unscientific.

— Ludwig von Mises

Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.

— Ludwig von Mises

All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by…

— 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

The market economy needs no apologists and propagandists. It can apply to itself the words of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St.…

— Ludwig von Mises

The program of classical liberalism, condensed into a single word, would have to read: property.

— Ludwig von Mises

Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of…

— Ludwig von Mises

“Socialism is an alternative to capitalism as potassium cyanide is an alternative to water.”

— Ludwig von Mises